


The Better Half of Me

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Confessions, Developing Relationship, Hand Jobs, Knives, M/M, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Reunions, Scars, Smoking, Stabbing, Tattoos, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:06:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 77,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15971066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Shizuo wonders if his soulmate is doing the same, somewhere, if they feel the gentle tug of belonging that Shizuo finds with every mark of an unfamiliar injury, every sign of connection to someone he doesn’t know, yet, someone whose entire existence will perfectly suit his own, who is waiting for him to complete their life as well." Shizuo and Izaya approach the prospect of their soulmate from very different perspectives, but their paths inevitably come together, whether that proves a help or a hinderance.





	1. Fated

Shizuo has always loved the idea of soulmates.

He doesn’t remember when he first learned of them. He must have been told at some point, when he was still young enough for his skin to go unmarked by any scars of his own or his soulmate’s making, but he was so small it didn’t linger in his recollection; or maybe it was just something he picked up the same way he learned his parents’ names and the face of his brother, the way one learns the shape of their bedroom and the strength of their body. When he was young enough to sit on his mother’s lap he would sometimes trace over the faint, pale marks that speak to long-past injuries shared out between herself and her partner, and when his father came home for dinner the first thing Shizuo would do is run to compare the same patterns on his father’s skin, to draw his fingers across the lines that form a web in an exact match of his mother’s own scars and long-since healed injuries. Once he remembers his mother burning herself against the edge of a baking pan, catching a line of dark, painful red against the side of her thumb from pressing her skin against the hot of the oven rack, and when Shizuo’s father had come in the door he had offered sympathy before he had even seen his wife, had reached to offer comfort for the injury without ever being told. Shizuo had come forward to look at his father’s hand, to find the line of the scar of his mother’s burn laid into painless echo on her soulmate’s body, and he remembers even then feeling something warm and pleased in his chest, to see the pain of an accident turned into a means to draw his parents nearer together, to underscore the bond outlined clear as ink across their skins.

Shizuo likes to think about his own soulmate. There’s nothing to give away their identity through Shizuo’s youth: none of the birthmarks or surgical scars that some of his classmates have, none of the dark-inked tattoos that some more impatient people seek out as a means of narrowing down the options in their lifelong search for their match. Shizuo’s skin shows nothing more noticeable than the pale-skinned knees and lines of occasional cuts across its surface, nothing to give any hint of himself or his soulmate as more than the energetic children they both must be, as yet. But Shizuo still sometimes sits on the edge of his bed and touches his fingers against the painless marks of injuries long-past or adopted from someone else’s body and tries to recall which are of his doing and which must be his soulmate’s. He wonders if his soulmate is doing the same, somewhere, tracking the simple comfort of a typical childhood fitting itself across their own skin, if they feel the gentle tug of belonging that Shizuo finds with every mark of an unfamiliar injury, every sign of connection to someone he doesn’t know, yet, someone whose entire existence will perfectly suit his own, who is waiting for him to complete their life as well. The thought is a pleasant one, like a promise of future happiness, something to look forward to in the endless possibility that forms his life, until Shizuo almost doesn’t mind his occasional injuries for the extra connection they form between himself and the person who is waiting for him elsewhere in the world.

Everything changes the day Shizuo loses his temper. It’s over something stupid, something minor: a saved pudding cup and Kasuka’s inattention to Shizuo’s clearly written claim to the same. It’s hardly worth getting irritated about, certainly not worth a fight; but something in Shizuo snaps, giving way as if a thread that has held strong all this time has suddenly broken under too much pressure, and when he moves it’s to turn and grab at the edge of the refrigerator standing twice his height behind him. He doesn’t think about lifting it, doesn’t decide to heave the weight up and over his head; he just does, acting with as much fluid grace as if there’s someone else in control of his body, as if something else has seized ownership of his identity. The refrigerator comes up, the weight of it rising and tilting over his shoulders to brace into place over his head as Shizuo turns, baring his teeth in a growl of incoherent rage at his brother’s unflinching calm; and then the weight shifts, the burden over his shoulders makes itself known, and Shizuo can feel the whole of his body give way as if his bones themselves are crumbling under the crush. He goes down, hitting the ground only a moment before the fridge does, and in the first blinding weight of pain he doesn’t even feel the crack he’s put in the line of his arm caught awkwardly underneath the weight of the fridge toppled on its side next to him.

It’s not the injuries that Shizuo regrets. He has no idea what happened, no sense of what possessed him to even attempt such an absurd feat, much less succeed at it; but while he’s lying in the hospital looking at the bruise swelling around his broken arm and waiting for the cast to be put on, it’s his soulmate he’s thinking of, somewhere far-off and distant. He doesn’t know why he did what he did, doesn’t know how; but there’s a deep puncture wound against the back of his wrist, an injury he doesn’t recall getting even as he watches blood seep slow to trickle over his skin, and he knows without waiting to see it heal that it will leave a scar, a circle marring his body and somewhere, far away, his soulmate’s as well. It’s that that he stares at, at the evidence of a connection that starts to feel like a shadow, now, more than sunlight, until the doctor comes in to wipe the blood away and set his arm back into place so it can heal cleanly.

It’s only the first. After that initial catastrophe Shizuo finds his temper on a barely-mended line, as if once broken his body remembers too well the path to follow to surge him into the unbelievable feats of strength to which his anger draws him. He breaks his bones, shatters his pelvis and snaps his leg and dislocates his wrist and shoulder and fingers; and he tears through his skin, patterning himself with proof of his own failure while he’s caught in such incandescent fury that he doesn’t even notice himself doing it. The wounds heal, skin mending as smoothly as his bones knit themselves; but every one comes with a thin white scar, across his arms or over his shoulders or beaten deep into his knuckles, until whatever marks of Shizuo’s soulmate were once there are lost, overwritten by the pattern of the destruction inflicted by his temper as much on himself as on the people and places around him.

Shizuo’s temper prints itself across his skin, forming a tapestry of scars that scream of the violence he hates so much in himself, until even seeing them fade almost out of tracking is no help. His skin might be healing, the marks of his past erasing themselves under the effect of time and his ever-increasing strength; but the same connection that was such a comfort to Shizuo’s youthful imagining is an unavoidable damnation now, a voice whispering the reality of Shizuo’s existence -- his temper, his anger, his uncontrollable strength -- against the ear of that one person best suited for him. Shizuo might be able to restrain himself, eventually, might be able to collect his strength into his own grasp and lock it down under the force of iron willpower; but his soulmate will know, will have seen the history of his actions printed across their skin over the months and years of the childhood they glimpse through the canvas of their shared scars. It is impossible for anyone to love the monster that Shizuo is, it’s a hopeless dream for him to find anything like the satisfaction of belonging that his parents have found in each other; he knows this absolutely, feels it with the same certainty he feels his own self-loathing roiling under his skin like it’s infecting every part of his body. His soulmate must fear him, must dread their meeting, must curse the day they were marked out as Shizuo’s match; this connection must be a burden to them, something they must dream of shedding with every new scar that blossoms against their knuckles or over the line of their ribs.

There can be no question of their reaction, not to any sane mind. And yet, even so: there are times when Shizuo lies awake in his hospital bed, fingers pressing close around some new injury waiting to form itself to another tell for his temper, and he imagines the impossible, someone strong enough or mad enough to love him all the same. Perhaps there really is someone out there in the world for him, someone whose existence can actually complement the jagged edges and brutal force of Shizuo’s own too-much life; maybe they feel the bond between them like an ache as much as he does, maybe they are as desperate for a connection as Shizuo so often feels himself. They could spend their whole lives chasing each other, searching and searching and never finding; and it’s at times like that that Shizuo presses his grip in tighter against his own skin, and squeezes his eyes shut, and imagines his mismatched scars as a map to lead his soulmate across the years to bring them into a belonging together at last.

If all his temper manages to do is bring Shizuo to his soulmate’s side a year, a day, an hour earlier, Shizuo can bear any kind of suffering along the way.


	2. Marked

Izaya has always hated the idea of soulmates.

It’s a romantic idea, to be sure. If he were to read it in a novel or watch it in a film he thinks he might smile at the sentiment of it, even if he’s happier in the end to leave such illusions to the purview of fiction. Even in the harsh light of reality it’s not a totally unpleasant idea; the people around him carry scars and tattoos like trophies, as if their connection with some other existence is something to be bragged about rather than a weakness they display with as much unthinking pride as their fashion choice, but even that is an advantage for Izaya, who can see the structure of the world around him as the vulnerability it is and seek a way to exploit it. It’s amusing to consider, to see the happy couples with mismatched skin and those like mirror images who can’t help but fight and still hear everything else around him insist on the truth of soulmates, on the transcendent reality of the true love written on one’s own skin. It’s like a grand joke in the structure of the world itself, laid into every atom of the existence Izaya moves through, and he would be more than happy to laugh were he not part of the punchline himself.

The scars start young. Everyone has a few small marks when they are in elementary school, the usual pattern of unwary falls or childish fights marked twice over on two bodies, and Izaya is no exception. For a time he catalogs the scars he borrows from his soulmate’s skin, carefully documenting each one before time fades them into obscurity; but they offer no insight, no means to narrow down the pool of humanity around him. Izaya doesn’t know what he’ll do if he ever finds his soulmate -- the greater part of him says run, but there’s a core of curiosity that he can’t seem to satisfy no matter what he does -- but whatever happens he’s certain he wants to know first, wants to have the decision about what to do before anyone else knows him for the other half of the “complete life” the romantics babble about. So he tracks whatever information he has, calculating possibilities and likelihoods with an intensity that turns his work to an obsession more than a hobby; and then all his effort is proved useless, as all his assumptions are overturned by a single unexpected twist of fate. Izaya’s few scars mark him for his own soulmate, as much as his own injuries mark his soulmate for him; and it’s at the start of middle school that his expectations upend themselves, and the whole of his body begins to blossom with injuries.

Izaya can’t guess as to the cause of the scars he sees forming on his skin. Any one might be reasonable, from a bad fight or an unpleasant accident; but he sees dozens at a time, over and over, repeating themselves in cycles of days or weeks, as if the direct recipient of the damage is doing their best to end their existence before they are forced into the expected happy ending with Izaya himself. But the marks go on and on, painting themselves across his arms, legs, chest, even sometimes up onto his face, proving the continuing existence of whoever it is so determined to scar themselves and Izaya at once with the proof of their life. Izaya wonders if it’s an attempt to mark him, an expression of the manic desperation that grips some people who decide they must lay hands to their soulmate by the most violent of means, but a tattoo is easier, or more deliberate self-harm than what these scars speak to. These look like the marks of fights, of violence more than any single human could possibly bear condensed onto one body, speaking to more pain than anyone could bear in sanity. Izaya watches the marks glow over his body, rising in flurries like snowstorms under the pale of his skin; and he starts wearing long sleeves, and jackets even in the summer, and when they spread to the line of a split lip or a cut eyebrow he buys himself makeup, and experiments applying it until he’s confident in his ability to hide the marks that label him as belonging to someone else, that point him out as clearly as a sign to the recipient of all this unexplained, impossible damage.

“I don’t understand why you want to hide it.” That’s Shinra, the only person who has ever bothered to name themselves Izaya’s friend; Izaya has certainly never offered any overtures of affection towards him, but Shinra doesn’t seem to care any more about what Izaya thinks of him than what anyone else does, and that has gained him a position of something like intimacy in Izaya’s life, or the closest thing he’s willing to allow in the day-to-day structure of his existence. “The marks are supposed to give you a way to find each other. If you cover them up you’ll never be able to!”

“Maybe I want that,” Izaya says without looking away from the mirror he’s leaning into as he draws a black pencil through the slim line of his brow to fill in the strip of white scar that bisects the clean curve of it. “Who said I wanted a soulmate in the first place? I don’t want to be with someone who is only interested in me because they think they should be.”

“But your soulmate is your destiny,” Shinra says. He’s offering the usual argument, one Izaya is far more familiar with than he might like to be; it’s only the near-scientific calm on his tone that grants his words anything like originality enough to hold even a fragment of Izaya’s attention. “You need each other. You’re _made_ for each other.”

“Made by whom?” Izaya wants to know. He puts the cap back on the pencil and sets it aside before touching against the dark at his brow to soften the edge into something that will pass for reality under any but the closest of inspections. “I don’t trust anyone but myself to make decisions about who I’ll be happiest with. Or who will be happiest with me, for that matter.” He straightens from the mirror and shakes his hands to let his pushed-up sleeves fall to shadow around the angle of his wrists and the line of his forearms. “Maybe it’s not even one person. Maybe all of humanity is my soulmate, and I’m showing the marks of everyone else all at once.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Shinra tells him. “You don’t show _my_ marks.”

Izaya glances at Shinra, sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed and with his school uniform buttoned loosely enough to leave the collar hanging open around the puckered scar that runs a grisly circumference around the line of his neck. “Thank goodness for that,” he says. “I pity whatever poor soul is stuck with you as their fated partner.”

Shinra doesn’t so much as blink at this statement. He just laughs, a bright peal of delight as if Izaya is making a joke instead of insulting him. “That’s fine,” he says. “She doesn’t need your pity. After all I’m her soulmate too!”

“Don’t you ever worry about that?” Izaya asks, sliding into the give and lilt of the familiar argument that he and Shinra have tossed back and forth between them since the first day they met. “How do you know you really love her? How do you know she really loves _you_?” He reaches for the weight of his uniform jacket so he can shrug it on over the long white sleeves of his shirt. “How do you know you wouldn’t both be happier with someone else?”

Shinra shrugs. “You know I can’t answer that,” he says, sounding far more relaxed at this admission of ignorance than he has any right to. “It’s like I keep telling you. Once you’ve met you just _know_.” He gets to his feet at once as Izaya picks up his school bag and moves towards the open door of his bedroom so they can make for the stairs and the front door with mismatched footfalls. “You’ll see. Someday you’ll meet your soulmate and you’ll realize I was right all along!”

“May that day never come,” Izaya says with as much fervor as he can put on the words. Shinra just laughs, blithe and unconcerned even with Izaya’s tone grating over more sincerity than he usually offers to much of anything, and as they come to the bottom of the stairs Shinra steps ahead to collect his shoes from where he dropped them in the entryway so he can take the lead out the door on their way to school together.

Izaya lets him go. He’s in no great hurry, either to get to school or to experience the connection that Shinra finds such a blessing and seems such a curse in his own skeptical eyes.


	3. Impression

Shinra comes to collect Izaya at the end of their first day of high school.

“Come with me!” is what he offers in lieu of any more appropriate greeting. “I have someone I want you to meet!”

“Good to see you too,” Izaya drawls with as much sarcasm as he can put on the words, and deliberately slows the process of collecting his school things into his bag for the walk home. “It’s good to know you’ve missed having me in your class, too, Shinra.”

Shinra waves his hand to brush aside this mocking reference towards civility and comes forward out of the doorway to where Izaya is seated at the far side of the classroom. “Hurry up, there’s no time to waste!”

“Hurry up to do _what_?” Izaya asks, and stops putting his things away entirely. “I’m not going to follow you blindly into some weird scheme of yours, you know how poorly that went last time.”

“That’s not it,” Shinra says, with the same blithe unconcern that he is so ready to show for everything in his life outside of the single fixed point of his soulmate. “I just want to introduce you to someone.”

“‘Someone,’” Izaya repeats back. “That’s very informative, thank you Shinra. Do you intend to just wander the halls until we run into a complete stranger, or…”

Shinra huffs a breath, as if Izaya is a very poor student failing to understand some exceedingly basic concept, and strides forward across the classroom to reach and seize at Izaya’s wrist. “Don’t be silly,” he says, and then he’s pulling with force enough to urge Izaya right off the balance of his feet and stumbling forward in the other’s wake, his bag still half-full at the edge of the desk behind him. It takes Izaya a moment to reclaim his footing and another to pull free of Shinra’s hold, and by then his interest is piqued, however unwillingly, just by the force of Shinra’s insistence on his unstated goal.

“Fine,” Izaya says, shaking his sleeve so the shadow of it covers his whole arm from shoulder to wrist before he slides his hands into his pockets as well to hide any new marks that might have blossomed on his skin in the last hours. “I’m coming, I coming. Any chance I might be able to win some information with obedience?”

“Huh?” Shinra looks back to Izaya, his eyes wide behind his glasses like he’s forgotten his insistence of a moment before. “What are you talking about?”

Izaya rolls his eyes with what he feels is an intense amount of coherency. “Who is it that has you so fired up for me to meet them?” He skips forward a step so he can walk more-or-less in pace with the other boy. “Am I finally going to be permitted to gaze upon the face of your beloved?”

For some reason this sets Shinra off into a peal of laughter so intense that Izaya wonders for a minute if he won’t have to remind the other of his hanging question by the time he collects himself. Shinra catches his breath and pulls his glasses off to wipe at his eyes before he answers. “No, no, Celty would never come directly to high school just for introductions. Although if she did I think my heart might burst on the spot. Maybe if I were terribly injured, and she got the news unexpectedly…”

Izaya clears his throat. “Shinra.”

“No,” Shinra says at once, without need for further prodding. “Not Celty, of course. I just want you to meet my friend Shizuo!”

Izaya turns his head to look at Shinra while he raises an eyebrow and waits for the other half of the joke to land. Shinra doesn’t look to meet Izaya’s gaze; he just goes on striding down the hallway, smiling in that distracted way he does when he’s caught up in thoughts of his fabled soulmate. Izaya finally has to give over his pointed stare, since he’s getting no audience for it at all, and content himself with looking back down the hallway while he drops his voice into sharp-edged mockery. “I didn’t know you _had_ friends.”

Shinra laughs again, again without any sign of so much as noticing the cut Izaya was intending to add to his words. “Of course I’m mostly interested in Celty,” he admits at once, with so much ease that Izaya looks sideways at him again. “But she thinks it’s important for me to have friends my own age, which is why I started that club with you in middle school.” They’re approaching the front doors of the school; Shinra cuts to the side to make for his locker without any hesitation, leaving Izaya to locate his own while Shinra goes on speaking loud enough to be heard over the tops of the lockers between them. “I met Shizuo even before that!”

“How lucky for Shizuo,” Izaya drawls, aware even as he says it that the mockery on his tone will go completely unacknowledged. “I don’t see why that means I have to drop everything to meet him. You couldn’t have brought him to my class to meet me there?”

Shinra’s laugh is as instant as if Izaya has said something as absurd as suggesting he lift the roof off the school building on a whim. “Shizuo doesn’t like meeting new people.” There’s the sound of a locker door slamming shut, followed closely by the scuff of shoes as Shinra comes around the corner to his own locker to find Izaya slipping free of his indoor shoes so he can replace them with ones better suited for outside. “But you’re both my friends, and I think it would be great for you to know each other too!”

“Excellent,” Izaya tells him, and picks his own shoes up to slide into the locker so he can swing the door shut. “This sounds like a fantastic idea. I’m sure your friend will _love_ me.”

As usual, Izaya’s tone goes unnoticed or ignored by Shinra before him. “It’ll be exciting for sure!” he says. “Now hurry up, we have to catch him before it’s all over!”

“Before _what’s_ all over?” Izaya says, but it’s a sketch of a question more than one he expects to have answered, and when Shinra moves past him to almost jog out towards the doors of the school Izaya follows without further complaint, even if he does refuse to fall into the harried pace Shinra has adopted.

It’s cool outside. The air is still chill with the trailing edge of winter not yet shed by the oncoming glow of springtime; Izaya’s glad for the weight of the jacket around his shoulders that serves as both comfort and cover for the bare skin of his arms and wrists. Shinra isn’t pausing to look back to see if Izaya is following him; he’s continuing on at once, taking the turn around the front of the school and ducking into the shadows cast by the building and the setting sun as quickly as Izaya turns to looks at him. Izaya heaves a sigh that goes unheard by any but him, and rolls his eyes in exasperation that goes similarly unseen, and then he strides forward around the edge of the school building to follow Shinra.

He hears the sounds as he draws closer. It’s hard to place them, for the first moment: they sound almost industrial, with the weighty impact of construction or machinery. It’s only as Izaya draws near to the corner of the building that he parses the screech and pull of metal as what it is, and only as he reaches out to touch against the side of the school to steady himself as he comes around and into sight that he starts to hear the other sounds, the more human but no less alarming backdrop to his approach. There are no shouts, nothing as full-throated as a scream or a yell of conflict; just the low murmur of groans, the complaints of those injured too badly or too badly frightened to muster anything with greater strength. Izaya’s skin prickles with unwilling anticipation, with the excitement of rising curiosity about this _Shizuo_ that Shinra so wants him to meet, apparently to be found in the midst of what Izaya recognizes as a fight without needing to see it; and then he steps around the corner of the building, and he sees.

There’s not just one person in the tableau before him. In actual fact Izaya glimpses a dozen at least, scattered in various poses of unconsciousness or the desire for such after receiving the beating of their lives. But amidst what looks like the remnants of an entire gang there is one man still on his feet, still standing as the evident victor in whatever conflict was happening here, and it’s to that one that Izaya’s gaze is drawn like iron being called home to a magnet.

He’s tall for his age. Izaya would guess that the man standing in the center of the destruction strewn around him has at least a pair of inches on Izaya’s own not-insignificant height, although he’s not particularly brawny with them. His white uniform shirt fits across the breadth of his shoulders without straining, and if his hair is bleached to a delinquent blond it looks more an affectation than the sincere threat it might be on one of those lying across the ground at this man’s feet. Except: except his hand is still closed around a length of metal, his fingers digging into indentations as deep as if they are meant to provide a grip for him to make use of, and it’s not the metal of a bat or a baton like one of the gang members around him might wield. It’s the crumpled remains of some kind of play structure, a basketball hoop or a soccer goal, the impossible weight of it rendered into the function of a weapon by the mere press of this man’s touch. Izaya stares at the scene before him, at the dregs of whatever fight formed and broke itself upon the man standing in the fading rays of the sinking sun, at that hand curled to a fist around the shattered remains of a metal structure far heavier than his own weight, and he feels his whole awareness shift, and alter, and reorient itself to point towards the stranger before him.

“Izaya!” The voice is different, coming from the sidelines instead of the glow of the sunlight on the scene; Izaya doesn’t even turn his head in answer to Shinra’s call, doesn’t lift his gaze free of the fixed point before him. He watches that golden head turn, watches the details of those features come into focus in profile before him as the man twists with savage speed to glare at the source of the voice before the strain in him visibly relaxes as recognition takes over instinct. The metal bar in his hand eases, tipping down to hit the ground before it falls free of his grip to clatter underfoot; Izaya can see the press of the other’s fingers laid into the metal with such perfect clarity he imagines he can pick out each individual fingerprint from the span.

“Shizuo!” Shinra has apparently given up on waiting for Izaya’s response; either that or he’s continuing on with his intended goal without concern for the actual attention of the two involved. “I brought my friend Izaya to meet you!” Shinra goes on talking, offering some kind of explanation or background for the intention of this meeting, but Izaya doesn’t hear him, because Shizuo swings to look at him and all Izaya’s usual attention to the world around him, sights and sounds and scents, gives way as Shizuo’s eyes meet his. His stomach drops, his heart skips, all his skin comes alight as if laid out under the brilliant glow of a noonday sun, and for a moment Izaya imagines he can feel every scar he has ever found on his body coming to life, forming themselves into an unbreakable web to knit shut the distance between his stalled-still feet and the man standing glaring at him from that last remaining puddle of sunlight. It’s hard to breathe, hard to remember how to move his lungs and chest and throat in the right rhythm to carry himself forward into another moment, another breath, another span of existence, until for the first heartbeat of Shizuo staring at him Izaya can do nothing at all except gape stunned silence back at the focus of those eyes.

Shizuo’s forehead creases, Shizuo’s mouth tenses. It takes Izaya a moment to place the expression as a frown, to understand it as the unhappiness it is; it seems impossible to frame basic emotions in the ringing clarity of his head, where the whole of the world seems to have opened up into an endless expanse that he had never guessed existed. It’s that dizziness that strips words from his lips and thought from his head, that leaves him voiceless for those first few moments of introduction, until it’s Shizuo who finds a breath first, who speaks into the quiet that has formed itself between them.

“Izaya,” he repeats. His voice is gentler than Izaya expected, given the signs of violence littering the space around them and printed into Izaya’s skin under the weight of his jacket and the long sleeves of his shirt. Shizuo’s frown deepens; when he moves it’s to rock back on his heels, as if he’s trying to frame the situation into something more understandable before he shakes his head like he’s throwing off some distraction. “I don’t like you.”

Izaya laughs. He doesn’t mean to, hadn’t intended for the splash of sound that breaks free of his lips like water flinging itself against the side of a cliff; it’s just the only thing he can think to do, the response pulled from him as if he’s reading from a script of Shizuo’s creation, as if his body is trapped by that same connection that has so rattled his thoughts. “Don’t you?” he asks, the question rhetorical and crackling with the amusement of irony, that after all his fear of being forced into affection he should find his feelings thrown up against a steel wall of dislike instead. “That’s a shame.” He shifts back onto his own heels, rocking into a mirror image of Shizuo’s retreat; he can feel the action ache against the inside of his chest, can feel the strain of it resonate all down the length of his spine. “Guess that means you’re not interested in having some fun together.”

Shizuo stares at Izaya for a moment, his eyes dark with suspicion and his mouth still tense on whatever he is feeling, an echo or an inversion or a shadow of that overwhelming tide that has rushed through Izaya himself in the moment their eyes met. And then he moves, all at once, without offering any kind of warning at all. His shoulder comes forward, his feet catch at the ground, and as his arm draws back into a fist Izaya can feel the weight of the blow against him as if he’s seeing the future, can imagine the crack of his bones and the flare of pain and the ache of connection that Shizuo will surely feel across his own skin, that he will hardly be able to mistake even if he has somehow not seen their connection already. The moment Shizuo hits Izaya he will know, he’ll be sure of everything past all hiding; and Izaya’s feet cant him backwards, skid his steady footing out from under him to veer away from that blow with an instinct born of years of dug-in resistance. His balance shifts, his body angles as if to drop him to the ground underfoot, and Izaya tips forward, letting the aching tug of Shizuo’s magnetic presence compensate for his own near-fall and urge him unexpectedly closer while Shizuo is still aiming at the spot where he was. For a moment Izaya is almost atop Shizuo, his shoulders nearly touching the other’s shirt and his face mere inches from the abrupt softness of surprise breaking like the dawn over Shizuo’s own, and it’s then that his own hand comes up, swinging in an arc far shorter and faster than Shizuo’s own well-telegraphed blow to drag the razor edge of the open knife in his grip out and across the other’s chest.

Shizuo hisses protest, the anger in his voice breaking on shock as reflex tips him backwards and stumbling away from the blow Izaya has just dealt him. His fist eases, his hand comes up to clutch at his sliced-open shirt where the red of blood is spilling from Izaya’s cut to stain the white of the fabric and smear crimson over his skin, and Izaya draws back by a quick handful of steps, retreating out of Shizuo’s reach as he lifts the knife in his hand to his forehead in a mocking salute.

“Good to meet you, Shizu-chan,” he lilts, purring the words into the bitterest irony of affection he can muster for them. “I’m afraid I just can’t bear the way you play, though.” Shizuo’s expression hardens, surprise melting away into deep-set lines of anger as temper catches up with the shock of injury, but Izaya doesn’t wait for Shizuo’s growl of frustration. He’s turning instead, pivoting at the toe of his shoe to bolt for the edge of the school building and clear of Shizuo’s gaze, until he’s halfway to the front entrance by the time the roar of “ _Izaya-kun!_ ” tears through the air behind him to speak to the advance of his pursuer. But Izaya’s pulse is already racing doubletime, and adrenaline grants his feet wings even as his heart thuds a drumbeat against the straight-line scar he can feel forming itself into permanence across the span of his chest.


	4. Tether

Shizuo is in a bad mood.

He had hoped for a day of peace, if nothing else. Middle school was an exhausting, endless string of fights, conflict and violence and bruises and blood that Shizuo can’t seem to free himself from no matter how he struggles. He’s stopped spending weeks in the hospital; a comfort, but a cold one, when every day he in the halls of his school is an endless parade of irritations to his temper and the constant threat of open violence breaking over him whether he looks for it or not. It was only in his third year that his strength became something to be feared rather than sought out, and all Shizuo can think when he looks at high school is that he’s going to have to start all over again before he can convince those around him to leave him alone for their own safety as much as his peace.

He had hoped his hair would make the difference. Bleached hair isn’t something he particularly likes himself -- it makes him look dangerous and threatening in a way that makes him grimace every time he sees a mirror -- but it’s worth a try, if only to frighten off those new acquaintances who may take him for a delinquent instead of something far worse. He did make it through the day in peace -- introductions are a fairly calm part of beginning school, and if there are any rumors about him they haven’t reached enough people to cause a problem by the time lunch arrives -- but no sooner had he stepped out of the front doors of the school than a group had accosted him, a gang of perhaps a dozen members of one or another of the biker gangs that roam around the city. They were looking for a fight themselves, anxious to prove their own strength or issue a threat or get revenge, Shizuo doesn’t know and doesn’t bother to ask for their motive. Enough that their bikes are lined up along the front path of the school, and that their presence is pulling exactly the attention he wants to avoid from his new schoolmates; and then the anger takes him, and he knows nothing but the red wash of fury for the long minutes of the violence that is always one-sided, when he’s involved.

His heart is pounding when his thoughts clear enough to pick out the voice calling behind him. The gang is down, their members beaten to unconsciousness or surrender all around Shizuo; he has a weight in his hand, a long length of crumpled metal he doesn’t even remember laying hand to. His shoulders are heavy, aching with the force of the blows he must have rendered on his enemies, must have struck to leave them lying so still around him, and for a moment all he can feel is the weight of his own resignation, the miserable self-loathing that always breaks over him in the aftermath of his own temper. But there’s someone still standing, the speaker who called out in that clear, carrying tone, and Shizuo jerks in response, twisting to glare at this newest opponent as his tired shoulders strengthen, as his vision blurs towards red again. He’ll go through them too, whoever it is, anyone who tries to get the upper hand on him, he’ll -- and then he sees a familiar, easy grin, and the shine of fading sunlight off bright glasses, and Shizuo’s tension drains out of him as quickly as he recognizes his probably-unbalanced but certainly-friendly acquaintance Kishitani Shinra. His hand eases, the metal in his hand hits the ground, and exasperation sweeps in to take the place of his anger as Shinra beams at him.

“Shizuo!” Shinra’s standing at the edge of the battlefield, his feet bare inches away from one of the fallen gang members; he doesn’t seem to be at all aware of the signs of combat all around him. Shizuo thinks they could be standing on the grassy edge of a riverbank, or along the sidewalk of a busy street, and Shinra would be bearing that same vaguely cheerful expression. He beams at Shizuo, his whole face glowing with what appears to be sincere delight, before he lifts a hand from his side to gesture to his right. “I brought my friend Izaya to meet you!”

Shizuo turns at once. Shinra he is used to, even if he still struggles to come up with any kind of understanding of the strangely cheerful boy who declared them to be friends during Shizuo’s third hospital stay in elementary school; but he hardly trusts Shinra’s taste in friends, especially since he is counted one of them, and amidst the ruins of a battlefield of his own making is hardly where he would like to meet anyone. He’s grimacing as he turns, frowning as quickly as he looks to see this promised friend; and then he sees the other half of his audience, and Shizuo can feel his heart sink right out of his chest entirely.

Izaya is beautiful. Shizuo has seen attractive people before: pretty girls or handsome boys, mothers who glow as they gaze at their children or men whose silvering hair grants them an appearance of wisdom that rather refines than diminishes their appearance. He’s never seen anyone like Izaya. The setting sun is cutting in across the back of the school, blinding Shizuo’s eyes for a moment as he turns to look so Izaya appears haloed in light, with illumination catching at his head to be drunk down into no more than a shine against the black sheen of his hair. He offers a slim silhouette, his shoulders and arms covered in the dark of the alternate Raijin uniform rather than the blue Shizuo chose, and his eyes look nearly black from Shizuo’s angle, though they’re as bright on Shizuo’s face as if they’re carrying an illumination of their own. There’s a tension at his mouth, like a secret held back against his tongue or the shape of a laugh barely restrained from breaking free to open delight; Shizuo can see the arch of his cheekbones, can see the line of his neck, everything from the curve of his eyebrows to the set of his feet precise, and elegant, and beautiful in a way that Shizuo can never hope to so much as touch without breaking. He feels the knowledge of that like a knife in his chest, as if every pristine detail of the other before him is a deliberate attack on him, a mirror twisted to throw back his own failings and inadequacies in his face, to remind him of everything that’s not meant for him, that he can’t hope to lay hands to even as every part of his existence aches for it. Izaya stares at him, his eyes dark and unreadable and his shoulders set to undermine the illusion of calm he’s managing by keeping his hands in his pockets, and Shizuo frowns, and curls his fingers into a fist to dig his nails in against his palm, and blurts words before he can think of them.

“Izaya,” he repeats, tasting the shape of the other’s name at his lips, feeling the strange inflection of the vowels on his tongue like he’s savoring over the sweet of some candy turned poisonous by his own flaws, burned to bitter ash by his own failings. Shizuo tightens his fingers at his palm until he can feel bruises starting at the skin. “I don’t like you.”

Izaya’s eyebrows jump. When he laughs the sound is startling, sharper than Shizuo expected and so loud it’s almost a shout instead of the amusement as which it is clearly intended. “Don’t you?” he asks. He tips his head to the side; the light against his hair shifts like it’s stroking across the strands. Shizuo can feel the urge to reach out and touch his fingers to that sleek dark like a physical compulsion within him. “That’s a shame.” Izaya’s smile cracks across his face with uncanny speed, giving way at his lips like it’s a wound tearing itself over the delicate arrangement of his features. “Guess that means you’re not interested in having some fun together.”

The words sound almost flirtatious, delivered in the lilt of the other’s voice and past the sharp-angled suggestion setting itself to Izaya’s mouth. Shizuo stares at him for a moment, feeling that ache of want in his chest, feeling the desire to reach, to take, to have, to accept the half-formed proposition that lies just under Izaya’s words; to imagine, just for a moment, what it would be like to be with someone unmarked by his own defeats of self-control, to linger in the appreciation of someone who hasn’t spent their whole life watching his every mistake paint itself across their body, who might spend a few brief months unaware of the depths of Shizuo’s errors and the scope of his flaws. But Izaya has already seen the start of that, he can see it scattered around them as clearly as Shizuo does; and he’s meant for someone else, those delicate features and slender limbs and pale, unmarked skin are intended for another, someone gentle and kind and restrained, someone not-Shizuo. Shizuo can feel the hurt of that more keenly than he ever has before, as if the thought is tearing his heart free of his chest with a strength unmatched even by his own, and in the agony of losing something he never had his body moves of its own accord to lash out vengeance as the only defense he has ever had to offer. His fist comes up, his arm flexes through a swing, and even as Shizuo moves he’s cringing in the back of his thoughts, shying away from the damage he’s about to do out of his own frustrated desire. His fist will shatter Izaya’s bones, will tear skin and crush muscle until Shizuo has destroyed this latest in a long line of things he craves and can’t lay hand to; and his arm swings forward, and his fist hits nothing.

Izaya isn’t where he was. Izaya has moved, faster than Shizuo expected, faster than Shizuo thought anyone _could_ ; in the span between Shizuo’s arm lifting and his strength propelling him forward into a swing Izaya has stepped in closer, has swerved in to press abruptly, startlingly close to Shizuo himself. Shizuo is left arcing his arm through open air, his hand swinging around in a motion suddenly given the structure of an embrace by Izaya’s unexpected motion, and Izaya is right in front of him, his face far nearer than it was. For a moment Shizuo can see the details of his features: the perfect curve of his brows, the line of his nose, the color of his eyes strange and red-shaded, now, as they catch the light. Then Izaya’s mouth twists, his teeth flash sharp amusement, and a line of heat blossoms across Shizuo’s chest, a long pull of fire that sends him jerking backwards on shocked instinct even before he feels the hurt of the cut that has just torn across his chest. Izaya skips backwards, as quick in his retreat as in his approach, and as Shizuo reaches to clutch at the burn of hurt spreading from his chest Izaya lifts the knife in his hand up, twisting so the blade catches the illumination of the sun and slices back into Shizuo’s eyes.

“Good to meet you, Shizu-chan.” Shizuo can’t see Izaya’s eyes, with the glint of the illumination blinding his vision; all he can parse is the shift of the other’s lips pulling to amusement over the laughter taut and manic under his words. “I’m afraid I just can’t bear the way you play, though.” Shizuo blinks, his fingers tightening on his shirtfront as Izaya lifts the knife and grants him back his vision; for a moment he can see the bright of those eyes on him, can see the edge of that grin teasing free whatever self-control he may have laid hand to. Then Izaya turns, twisting on his heel and dropping into an all-out sprint, and something in Shizuo -- anger, want, instinct -- lurches him forward to follow, dragging him into action while his grip is still fisted on his bloodstained shirt and his breath is still caught on shock and pain. His shoes scuff at the ground, his body falling into the rhythm of pursuit while his brain lags behind, and when he lets his breath free it spills into sound without any thought from him at all.

“ _Izaya-kun!_ ” It’s a roar of anger, a denial of fate, a demand for obedience, and Shizuo is moving forward, skidding around the corner of the school building and flinging himself after Izaya’s retreating back with the sound of sunbright laughter to pull him forward as if a line hooking itself against the inside of his aching chest.


	5. Absence

Shizuo doesn’t catch Izaya. He’s too fast, or maybe Shizuo is too slow; either way, it comes to the same loss in the crowd of humanity that fills the city, that moves too slowly to clear the path even for Shizuo’s roaring demands for action, and by the time Shizuo rounds the third corner Izaya is gone, vanished as if he evaporated into the sun-hazed gold of the air around them. Shizuo seethes for long minutes, his shoulders heaving and heart racing while the cut across his chest drips to clotted stickiness as the bleeding slows and halts, and finally he turns around to growl his way back over the distance to the school so he can collect his bag before making his way home. It’s not as if he won’t see those scarlet eyes and that shining hair again, not when they attend the same school and share a mutual friend; whatever Shizuo thinks of doing in revenge for the line scored across his chest can surely wait until the next time their paths cross.

Except that time never comes. Shizuo trudges to school with a scowl on his face, lifts his head to look through the crowd of students that fill the front courtyard to seek out the telltale sheen off  vivid black hair; but Izaya is nowhere to be seen, even when Shizuo spends the whole of his lunch hour pacing the halls in pursuit of him. Days pass one after another, ordinary and mundane and uninterrupted by anything but the occasional flare of Shizuo’s temper; and the cut across his chest heals, angry red mending and softening into nothing more than another line on his body, another mark to scar the skin of his soulmate, wherever they may be.

Shizuo’s temper burns hot and vicious, but it doesn’t linger long. Even the new scar he sports under the weight of his uniform shirt can’t keep his anger burning for more than a few days; he’s been responsible for far worse than that on far more occasions, and however unbalanced Shinra’s friend presented himself he seems to have achieved whatever he intended with that first dramatic meeting. He keeps his distance, so studiously avoiding Shizuo that it’s weeks before Shizuo so much as catches a glimpse of him, and even then it’s during a break and through a crowd of people that pack the school hallway so closely Shizuo’s usual consideration for others keeps him still. He tries shouting -- softer than he would in a temper, as if he’s just another student trying to get the attention of an acquaintance -- but Izaya ignores him, or maybe doesn’t hear him at all, because he turns and vanishes down another hallway without ever lifting his head to see Shizuo watching him. Shizuo thinks of following him, of pushing his way through the crowd around him and chasing the dark of the other’s coat through the array of typical blue that surrounds them, of closing his grip around a skinny arm and forcing those eyes into focus on his own; but he doesn’t know what he would do, doesn’t know even what he would say. Izaya swung a knife at him, to be sure, an act of startling aggression that has left a clear sign drawn in a long diagonal over Shizuo’s chest, but Shizuo offered the clench of his fist in lieu of a first greeting, and no one knows better than he how much damage that could have done had his blow landed. Shizuo supposes he should be grateful for Izaya’s distance, for the demonstrated self-preservation that is so lacking in those who wish to try their strength or test their courage against the wall that is Shizuo himself; and so he turns away to make his way back to his own classroom, unaware of the crowd parting before the scowl he bears like a thundercloud across his face.

Shizuo finds a pattern for his days, eventually. The inevitable panic that follows his first few weeks fades and eases as those around him decide to keep their distance or hold their tongues, depending on their courage and temperament, and Shizuo’s temper cools, unravelling into something bearable if not comfortable most of the time. He still passes on the half-hearted invitations to various sports clubs -- he’s likely to cause as much destruction to the equipment as he might effect on opposing teams -- and contents himself with as much distance from those around him as he can manage to sustain, but by the end of the first term Shizuo finds himself surrounded by a handful of acquaintances who at least serve as company for the lunch break in the middle of the day and a source of conversation enough to ease some measure of the loneliness he has carried all through the long years of middle school.

He’s last to make it to the classroom, today. Kadota has homeroom on a different floor than Shinra and Shizuo do, which usually puts him last of the three of them to arrive, but Shizuo’s class is taking a test, and as he’s collecting the lunch his mother packed for him his upperclassman Tom steps in to knock against the doorframe and smile a greeting. Shizuo lingers in conversation for a few minutes, glad of his success in going nearly two weeks without any fights at all, and by the time he’s making his way down the hall to the regular meeting point of Shinra’s classroom he’s feeling warm and pleased as much by his sense of satisfaction as by the conversation.

Shinra is talking when Shizuo comes into the classroom, speaking with the beaming smile and expansive gestures that he typically shows in any conversation. Kadota is tipped over his lunch, his focus turned to his meal and only giving occasional hums to indicate that he’s hearing the enthusiasm that Shinra is offering to fill the nearly-empty room, but even so it’s a moment before Shinra looks up to see Shizuo and interrupt the rhythm of the story he’s in the middle of telling.

“So he decided to make a group out of it,” Shinra’s saying now. “I guess he runs the whole thing, or at least that’s what he claims.”

“Huh,” Kadota says, barely glancing up from his meal to look at Shinra next to him. “Isn’t that dangerous stuff to be getting involved in?”

Shinra shrugs with eloquent disinterest. “He’s always been like that,” he says, and then shifts his attention up to Shizuo at once, as if he isn’t still on the same breath with which he concluded his previous story. “Hey there, Shizuo! We’ve been waiting for you!”

“Hey,” Shizuo says, and comes forward across the classroom from the doorway. The desks are arranged in tidy rows except for those few that have pulled together to make clusters for the students that are remaining in the classroom for the meal; he lays claim to one of his own to twist it around so the flat top is more or less lined up with Kadota’s and Shinra’s before he moves to sit down. “I ran into my senpai as I was leaving class. Sorry I’m late.”

Shinra waves a hand to sweep this aside. “It’s fine!” he says with his usual cheerful good humor. Shizuo sets his lunch at the top of his desk and begins to unknot the wrapper tied around it as Shinra turns back to Kadota. “I’ve been telling him for years that he’s going to get himself hurt but he hasn’t started listening to me yet.”

Kadota snorts. “That sounds about right.”

“Who are you talking about?” Shizuo asks as he looks up from his lunch.

“Shinra’s friend,” Kadota says. “Apparently he’s running some kind of gambling ring.”

“Izaya’s always getting into some kind of trouble,” Shinra says, in tones better suited for an owner speaking of a beloved pet than someone concerned for the life of a fellow human being. “He has been ever since middle school.”

Shizuo looks down to his lunch again, although he’s not really seeing the knot in the fabric before him anymore. “Izaya, huh.”

“Yep,” Shinra says. “See, Kadota, I told you Shizuo hates him.”

“What?” Shizuo glances back up at once, his focus on what he’s attempting to achieve utterly thrown over in favor of rebuffing this absurd claim. “I do not. Why do you think I hate him?”

Shinra blinks owlishly from behind his glasses, his expression the very picture of innocent surprise. “Don’t you? But you told him you didn’t like him that one time when I tried to introduce you.”

“I was in the middle of a _fight_ ,” Shizuo growls. “I wasn’t in a very good mood to be meeting anyone.”

Shinra cocks his head to the side. “You tried to punch him.”

“And he _cut_ me,” Shizuo protests. “With a _knife_.”

“Right,” Shinra says. “Like I said. Don’t you two hate each other?”

Shizuo scowls at him. “ _I_ don’t.”

“Oh.” Shinra shrugs, as if this detail is of only passing interest, as easily brushed aside as noted. “I thought he was avoiding you for his safety. Maybe he just doesn’t like you.”

Shizuo can’t explain why this should tense his shoulders and clench his fingers towards a fist. His temper is a weapon, he knows; the injudicious application of it has gained him enemies in every gang in the city as well as the general dislike of large portions of his classmates who have seen too much of what happens to those who flare Shizuo’s temper even accidentally. For a stranger who Shizuo barely met to hate him is no surprise, especially under the circumstances of their meeting; and it hardly makes a difference to Shizuo, who would rather have as little as possible to do with the uncanny draw of those bright eyes and the shadows that cling to that silky hair. But Shizuo’s temper has never been restrained by logic, and all he can say is that Shinra’s offhand words hit him as if he’s been smacked full across the face, as if he can feel the edge of Izaya’s supposed dislike far more sharply than he ever felt the cut of the other’s knife.

“I’ve never done anything to him,” Shizuo growls, and hunches in over his lunch to pull fretfully at the cloth still fixed tight into a knot. “Why would he not like me?”

“Maybe he doesn’t,” Kadota says, in the soothing tones he sometimes take that remind Shizuo of the flat calm of his brother’s bland statements that always manage to leech the strain from his shoulders and undo some part of the tension in his body. “It sounds like he’s got a lot of other things going on. Maybe he’s just busy and isn’t looking for new friends.”

“Oh no!” Shinra says, bright and oblivious as ever. “It’s definitely Shizuo he’s avoiding. He makes time for anyone else who wants to go out to tea or karaoke with him but he refuses every time I invite him to stay and eat lunch here with us.” He shrugs expansively. “I keep telling him he should give you a chance but he’s always the first to leave class. Sometimes I think he doesn’t want you to see him at all.”

Shizuo looks up in spite of himself. Kadota’s watching him from the other side of the desks, still leaning in over his meal but with his body in that deceptive relaxation that speaks of the ability to move very quickly should the need arise, but Shizuo’s not paying attention to him. He’s not even really angry, he thinks; or at least, whatever it is aching at the inside of his chest doesn’t have the hard knot of pressure that anger always feels like. “He’s in _class_ with you?”

Shinra laughs. “Of course!” he says. “Didn’t you know?” He ducks his head to nod at the support under Shizuo’s elbows. “That’s his desk you always sit in.”

Shizuo looks down at once. There’s nothing remarkable about the desk under him anymore than there has been any of the other days he’s eaten lunch in the familiar space of this classroom; it’s the same nondescript wood, smooth across the top and with the chair that’s a little too short for his knees, with a pair of textbooks slipped carefully into the shadows of the rack underneath. But the thought of it being Izaya’s desk: of those being Izaya’s books, pushed out of sight by Izaya’s hands, sends a shiver down Shizuo’s spine as if a ghost has whispered through the space where he’s sitting, like he’s feeling the electricity of Izaya’s presence even with the other well absent from his vicinity.

“Wow,” Kadota says, even his initial attempt at calm giving way to surprise. “He really must not like you, to be avoiding you like that.”

Shizuo scowls at the desk and lifts his gaze back to his lunch wrapper. “Fine,” he says, and yanks against the knot. “I don’t care. He can go out to lunch with a different girlfriend every day, it doesn’t matter to me.” The knot pulls under his fingers as he drags too hard, and the cloth tears through against the edge of his lunchbox while the knot remains fixed. Shizuo stares at the ripped fabric, his jaw setting on the beginning of frustration, and Kadota clears his throat and asks Shinra what his plans are for their day off. Shinra is happy to respond at once, launching into a lengthy description of his possible plans and backups for those plans and fallbacks for the backups, and by the time he’s beginning in on his third possibility Shizuo’s temper has cooled enough for him to free his lunchbox from the torn cloth and begin eating. His lunch is good -- it always is, thanks to his mother’s skillful cooking -- and once he’s halfway through he finds his temper has dissipated to leave him willing to look back up and rejoin the casual conversation, only just beginning to wander away from Shinra’s plans and onto Kadota’s extra work shift.

No one mentions Izaya’s name again for the rest of the lunch break, not even Shizuo, but even when he collects his empty lunchbox and torn wrapper, his chest is still aching all across the line of that long-healed knife wound.


	6. Keen

Things are easier in high school.

Shizuo had always hoped they would be. It was the effort to give that hope structure that led him to bleach his hair, that brought his mood so low that first day when all his efforts appeared to be for naught; but the bleach serves its purpose, or maybe it’s just rumor that finally spreads far enough, and as the months pass the fights lessen, retreating into the recesses of Shizuo’s memory instead of the immediacy of his reality. His scars fade, the marks on his skin easing along with the burden of his long-held self-loathing, until he begins to find something like comfort for the span of his days, something like peace within the circle of acquaintances he thinks of more and more as friends.

He doesn’t see Izaya again. The intensity of the other’s avoidance lingers in his thoughts for the first several weeks, haunting his awareness as if Izaya is more present in his absence than the reality of him would be; but peace does what Shizuo always hoped it would, and if he feels a pang of regret at the thought of that disastrous first meeting he thinks of it less and less, as the months slide past to fade the edges of that wound too. The line across his chest remains, a reminder of the bite of that knife and the cut of that smile every time Shizuo glimpses it, but Shizuo has spent years learning to look past the scars on his skin for his own self-preservation, and this one is no exception to his efforts. He ignores it as long as he can, and brushes over it when he can’t, and with time even the brilliance of Orihara Izaya’s existence fades from his memory, softened into something more easily set aside along with all the other mistakes and missed chances littered in the past by the effect of his intolerable strength.

The only time he sees the other again is at graduation, when they are mingled into the crowd of third years waiting their opportunity to step across the raised stage and claim their diplomas, but Izaya is far ahead of Shizuo’s place in the list, and Shizuo has a bad view of the stage and other things to occupy his thoughts. It’s only later, after his family has taken him out for a celebratory dinner and they’ve all walked home in the warm glow of contentment, that Shizuo stirs from the drifting haze of fast-approaching sleep to realize that that half-caught glimpse of Izaya might be the last he’ll ever see of him. They have no reason to seek each other out from here, no need to see one another now that their high school career is over; Izaya is probably going on to university, or leaving the city, and even if he’s not there is nothing to bring them together. Shizuo lies awake in the dark, gazing unseeing at the ceiling overhead and feeling that old, familiar ache of something lost before it was even begun at the inside of his chest; and then he frowns at his own sentimentality, at his strange, persistent grief for a friendship that never formed in the first place, and turns over to urge himself into sleep.

It’s difficult for him to find a job. Shizuo never intended to continue on to university, as Shinra declared to be his intention; his has always been the path of employment, just as it has been Kadota’s, and there is something satisfying to the thought, to the idea of earning enough money to make himself independent, to make a life for himself rather than continuing as a burden to his parents. But employment is challenging to lay hand to; or, rather, to keep hold of once he finds it. It’s easy to get work at one or another of the dozen low-paid positions that are constantly hiring to replace those who quit or move on, but under the public eye Shizuo finds himself unrecognized as anything more than a recent graduate with delinquent-blond hair, which proves more of a lure to those ready to start a fight than a deterrent. Few of the places he works have sufficient insurance to cover the damage he does the first time he loses his temper, and with each repetition Shizuo finds himself handed a final paycheck in exchange for his uniform and sent back to join the ranks of the unemployed once more.

It’s the bar that finally works out for him. He wasn’t expecting much success: he has no experience at all mixing the drinks the patrons order, and a room full of people with a tendency towards inebriation hardly seems like the best place to hold his temper. But most people are cheerful rather than argumentative, and when fights break out they’re between customers and rapidly squashed by the broad-shouldered men who linger as silent shadows at the door, and after Shizuo’s first month a box of uniforms arrives, addressed to him and with a note from his brother within. Shizuo reads the advice on the note, the bland statement that it’ll be better to hold down a steady job, and he feels it glow in his chest with all the happiness that overt praise would bring from anyone else, and he decides that he’s going to keep this job no matter what it takes.

Shizuo finds a rhythm for his life, after that. He works through the evenings and into the small hours of the morning, finally helping with cleanup after the last of the most persistent drunks have stumbled their way out onto the sidewalk to make their way home or at least to a bench to sleep off some measure of their intoxication; then he makes his own way back, in the darkest hours before dawn and the quietest time in the city, to his own small apartment so he can shed his uniform and fall into bed to be asleep by the time the day breaks. His mornings are slow and more often afternoons that otherwise; he stays in, usually, or goes out, when he needs to, for shopping or to meet Shinra, or Tom, or Kasuka, before his shift arrives and he returns to begin all over again.

It’s a pleasant way to live. Shizuo hasn’t experienced anything close to peace since the childhood so long-lost beneath the weight of years and self-inflicted damage that he can hardly remember it: back when the marks on his skin were the sign of a bond instead of an indication of the burden he inevitably must become to whoever it is so unlucky as to be tied to him. He finds a comfort in the mundanity of his life, in the steady pattern of work-sleep-life, and if it’s not the happy ending he used to dream about that was a part of his childhood, left behind along with a belief in superheros and magic, and it’s enough, he thinks, to be happy. He thinks of his soulmate, sometimes, out there living some unknown life apart from his own, blissfully unaware of his existence, and if it’s a lonely thought there’s a comfort to it, too, as he hopes that whoever they are, wherever they are, they are finding their way to a life as steady and peaceful as his own.

It’s in the middle of this period in Shizuo’s life, of peace untouched by any of the violence he so hates in himself, that the scar appears.

He doesn’t know when it first forms itself on his skin. He takes quick showers when he’s at home, scrubbing and rinsing more for necessity than for the pleasure of the experience, and he has taught himself well to look past the scars across his arms and peppering his legs and chest. Soap covers the sight of them, and in his haste to rinse Shizuo spends very little attention to the feel of familiar textures under his fingers; it would be easy to miss a new addition, to smooth past a fresh scar without noticing it for long weeks. It’s only when he goes out to the public bath for the long soak he indulges in every month or so that he catches a glimpse of his bare skin in one of the full-wall mirrors that coat themselves in the disguise of steam, and only the vivid dark of a fresh-made scar low on his abdomen that jerks his attention abruptly and entirely away from the pleasure of the long soak to come.

It’s perfectly clear, as soon as Shizuo looks down for it. He dresses without looking at himself, only bothering with a mirror once his clothes are on so he can align his tie and smooth his hair into place; otherwise he’s sure he would have noticed the scar sooner, deep and shadowed as it is. It sits low on his belly, just over the rising arch of one hipbone; the skin puckers in to form an indentation, gathering tight around a dark line nearly an inch wide that sits at an angle just over Shizuo’s hip. Shizuo touches his fingers against the shape of it; for the first moment he can’t make sense of the visual, can’t form logic to the shape of a wound he’s never seen before appearing fully healed without him recalling it. He’s thinking over the last weeks, seeking some gap in his memory or an evening blurred into hazy inconsistency by the alcohol he rarely drinks or some other, similar explanation, when there’s a whistle from the man next to him loud enough to pull Shizuo’s attention up and away from his side.

“Nasty knife wound you got there.” The man is nearly as tall as Shizuo, broader in the shoulder and darker in the reddish shade of his hair; he has a deep scar across his face, cutting a wound over the space of one eye socket and making his face a picture of violence, but his tone is cheerful and friendly as if that of an eccentric uncle. “Is that your own or mirrored?”

Shizuo blinks. “Mirrored?”

“From your soulmate.” The man grins and turns aside without waiting for a response to head for the row of showers along one side of the tiled space.

Shizuo looks back down. His fingers are still pressing to the scar, feeling out the indentation of it against his skin; it’s been so long since he found a wound not of his own making against his body that he had entirely forgotten the connection running both ways. “Oh,” he says. “It’s theirs.”

“That’s quite a dramatic one.” The man strips the towel from around his hips and settles himself at one of the stools under the showerheads before reaching to turn the spray on. “Are they alright?”

Shizuo frowns, feeling like he’s missing half of the conversation he’s ostensibly involved in. “What?”

“Your soulmate,” the man says. He twists around on his stool to look back at Shizuo; it’s only as his gaze fixes on the other that some curiosity in his remaining eye softens into realization. “Ah,” he says. “You haven’t met yet?” He glances over Shizuo’s scarred chest and legs before raising an eyebrow and turning back to his shower. “Better get going, from the looks of things. Might be about time to start thinking of tattoos.”

Shizuo scowls at the stranger’s back. “What are you _talking_ about?”

“You haven’t thought that through?” the man asks, but he doesn’t look back to see Shizuo’s expression tighten towards the danger of outrage at this apparent condescension. “Well, I guess young people can afford some recklessness. Still, we’re all of us as human as the next. All it takes is a bullet or a sharp knife to leave you or anyone matchless.” He tips his head back over his shoulder towards Shizuo, canting his scarred eye in the other’s direction as if he can see from that side. “From the looks of things your other half is doing their damnedest to get themselves offed before they meet you.” He ducks forward to tips his head under the warm of the shower spray over him; when he speaks again his voice is muffled under the weight of the water. “If they haven’t succeeded already.”

Shizuo’s anger evaporates, dissolving into his veins as immediately as it rose. His hand presses hard against the scar at his side; but of course there’s nothing he can do, no pressure he can exert to mend the injury once done. It’s some comfort to know that the majority of the scars on his skin are of his own making, rather than carried over by the bond Shizuo hasn’t yet traced to its source; but when he looks down again it’s with new eyes for the mark at his side. It’s low enough to have missed any vital organs in the chest, even Shizuo’s insufficient anatomical knowledge is sure of that, but Shizuo knows nothing about the relative danger of knife wounds, can’t make a guess at the angle at which the blade must have gone in. His soulmate could be in the hospital now, struggling for life under the watchful eyes of doctors; but then, Shizuo can’t even be sure when this scar appeared, if it was this hour or this day or a week, a month ago. His soulmate could have been knifed in some shadowy alley, could have bled to death unrecognized and unmourned while Shizuo was living out the peaceful rhythm of his own life; and Shizuo’s breathing catches, all the calm in him scattered by the terrifying reality presented by a stranger’s words.

He stays to take his bath. There’s nothing else he can do; he has no more idea where his soulmate is now than he ever did, and he’s already paid for his visit so he might as well make the most of it. But he lingers over every inch of his body, seeking out some mark, some shadow, some proof rising under his fingertips to speak to his soulmate’s continued existence, and even long after the stranger has left with a wave of farewell Shizuo stays in the warmth of the bath, tracing his fingers over the scar over his hip and willing himself to feel some sense of connection from the mark.

He had never thought that he would be hoping to see more scars across his body, but right now he can think of nothing that would be more comforting than such proof of his soulmate’s sustained life.


	7. Serendipitous

By the time he gets out of the hospital, Izaya has resigned himself to the consequences of his mistake.

It was a stupid error. He can see it now, in all the crystal-clarity of hindsight: foolish to meddle with people he didn’t fully know, foolish to let his guard down, foolish to think that the bustle of a crowd was enough disguise to hide him. Izaya has long played games bigger than him, has often toyed with waves of action that crest at his command but crash well beyond his control, and he knows better than anyone how quickly something can twist on its presumed owner to offer startling pushback. He has plenty of time to think about his mistake in the hospital, while he’s trapped in a thin gown and half-delirious with the pain medication they give him to ease the stabbing sharp of the knife wound at his belly to a dull throb of hurt, and it’s the woozy slur of his thoughts, he thinks, that proves unformed enough to turn towards that subject he has so studiously avoided for so many years.

It’s the scar that he is most furious about. Injuries he cares little for; after years of bearing another person’s fights scrawled in blatant clarity over his own body Izaya is hardly about to hold the unblemished smooth of his skin as something precious. But this wound is an obvious one, the scar deep and dark and, most damningly, unique in a way that no amount of makeup is ever going to be able to hide. Izaya will have to keep it covered when he’s released, will have to draw the hems of his shirts long to be sure they hang heavy over the inch of skin just over the top of his hip; but more of an immediate threat even than that is the necessity for stillness, as his injuries hold him to his hospital bed where he could be found via even a casual search. The wound is clearly a knife injury, obviously the result of a stabbing; it wouldn’t be terribly challenging to check the news reports, or even to call the hospitals in the city directly and ask after any recent intakes for the same. Izaya spends long, hazy nights staring at the endless dim lighting that fills his hospital room and half-terrified, half-hopeful at the thought of the door to his room flying open, of Heiwajima Shizuo glaring at him from the doorway with Izaya himself too injured to even make an attempt at the retreat he so clung to for all of their high school years. The idea is horrifying, in Izaya’s imagination, made into a catastrophe hardly lesser than facing imminent death; but the drugs that ease his pain take the edge off this fear, too, softening it until Izaya’s racing heartrate feels more like the rhythm of anticipation than the shudder of terror, until he can feel his skin flushing warm and pink just with the thought of Shizuo finding him at last and finally ending the distance that Izaya has been playing out for all the years since that first overwhelming introduction.

Shizuo doesn’t come. Izaya doesn’t know what the reason is: maybe he didn’t notice the scar, maybe he never saw the pattern blossoming to dark evidence on his skin. Maybe he doesn’t care enough; maybe he feels the weight of his soulmate the way Izaya once did, as something better ignored than pursed. Or maybe he knows already: maybe he read Izaya’s name on the page of a newspaper, or made a call that never made it to Izaya’s ears, and all Izaya’s efforts at keeping his distance for what protection anonymity can grant him have been rendered useless by Shizuo’s uncaring awareness. It’s that last thought that lingers longest, that haunts Izaya’s thoughts and follows him down into sleep, until even the rest his healing body needs is twisted to nightmares and formed around the shadows of a pursuit Izaya can’t escape, a chase made the more terrifying because he doesn’t even know if there is anyone chasing him at all, if there is anyone reaching out for him in the first place.

Izaya is more than ready to return home by the time he’s released from the hospital. His side still aches, still throbs idly like it’s reminding him of the rhythm of his heartbeat via a steady echo of the same, but he’s ready to be free of the dull blur of the pain medication and to retreat to a space where his location can’t be given up as the result of a single casual phone call. His apartment is just as he left it, expansive and luxurious and coolly uncaring, and the first thing Izaya does upon returning is turn over the deadbolt and come forward to fall onto the couch and drop into the most restful sleep that a locked door and no audience can grant him. He wakes up cold from his air conditioning and with his knees cramping from the uncomfortable position he’s angled himself into on the cushions, but there’s something reassuring about that too, to waking up alone and hurting with no one to offer to plump his pillows or give him another dose of painkillers. This is familiar, if nothing else, Izaya knows the rhythm of this life to which he’s returned, and he makes his way up the stairs to the bathroom so he can stand under the too-hot spray of the shower and think about nothing at all.

The city hasn’t changed in his absence. Izaya isn’t much surprised by that; Ikebukuro is crammed to bursting with its residents, overflowing with humanity that by and large care no more about Izaya than they do about any other of the strangers filling the hum and bustle of the streets. There’s a comfort to that, even with the ache at his side to remind him how easy it is to pick him out of a crowd, and with his hood pulled up to shadow his face there’s a pleasure to losing himself in the mass of people, to becoming just another person amidst the thousands that walk these same streets every day. The idea of finding any one person in the crowd is impossible to consider, a foolishness even to think of; a pair of soulmates could spend their whole lives searching for each other from homes a block away and never find their way into each other’s arms. How much better for Izaya, with his determined interest in keeping his distance from the man who rejected him so instantly upon their first meeting in direct defiance of the bond written across their skin; he could stay away for months, years, for the whole of his life if he wanted, without ever setting eyes on Heiwajima Shizuo again. The idea is a certainty, a reassurance he can repeat to himself over and over without ever losing traction on the reality of it, and if it leaves him cold and aching through nights made endless by their isolation at least it’s a path he’s chosen for himself, a route distinct from the one fate wishes to throw him on.

He can’t explain why he decides to go out for sushi, some weeks after the wound at his side has healed to a painless shadow. It’s not something in which he usually indulges, except at the pricer restaurants he generally prefers; if he’s going to order something cheap it only makes sense to have it delivered and at least appreciate the quiet of his own apartment since the food is rarely high enough quality to merit much attention itself. But Izaya has been restless all day, pacing around the expanse of his apartment and feeling as if it’s a tenth the size it is in truth, and when his stomach growls to remind him of its need for sustenance he’s happy to go out without any destination in mind, without anything to guide his steps but serendipity and his rising hunger. He wanders down a series of streets, pacing his way through the crowds wrapped in the security of his dark jacket and a touch of shadow to obscure the scar that cuts through his eyebrow, a smudge of concealer to hide the white line at the edge of his jaw, and he’s standing at the corner of an intersection waiting for the light to change when he looks up and catches his attention at the neon illumination of a sign for the sushi restaurant on the far corner. It’s a busy place, frequented by high schoolers and busy salarymen more than the upscale clientèle at the restaurants Izaya habitually visits on his own will; but the lights catch his eye, and the voice of the large black man standing in the front wielding flyers like a weapon pulls at his ear, and when the light changes Izaya cuts diagonally across the intersection instead of following his originally intended route.

The corner is a busy one. Izaya doesn’t think the shouting is really needed to pull more customers into the shop; from the looks of things the restaurant is filled nearly to the bursting point with the customers it already has, and the chef behind the counter has his head down to apply absolute focus to the rolls he’s crafting on the surface before him. Izaya thinks about leaving again -- it looks like it’ll be quite a wait for any kind of food, and he’s beginning to feel hunger trembling in his hands with the need for some kind of sustenance -- but he hesitates in the doorway, just to look out over the crowd in front of him. The room is full of voices, laughter and conversations and flirtations alike, and there’s a pleasure just to seeing such an overt display of humanity, of the ebb and flow of dozens of interactions fit into the span of a few close walls. Izaya reaches to catch at the edge of his hood and push it back from his face, just so he can see better instead of having his vision obscured by the soft fur around the inside edge, and it’s just as the weight slips free of his hair that he turns his head and looks straight into Heiwajima Shizuo’s fixed gaze.

It’s been years since Izaya laid eyes on Shizuo directly, and longer still since he left himself open for the weight of the other’s attention on him. The whole of high school was a struggle to keep himself at a distance, to hold himself at the greatest remove he could manage from the danger of the other recognizing him for what he is, for who he is, for what connection they have between them; since graduation Izaya has hardly set foot in the city at all except for work, just to maintain his isolation and the illusion of independence that comes with that. It’s easier to live without the constant fear of exposure, easier when his efforts to hide the scars across his skin are a matter of convenience rather than of necessity; so he stayed away, and he told himself it was worth it, he told himself that he didn’t feel the lack, that his memory of that first cataclysmic meeting was nothing more than the absurd delusion of a lovestruck teenager.

It wasn’t a delusion. Nothing has softened, nothing has eased; knowing the identity of his soulmate, having the experience of that first meeting, has done nothing except speed the collapse of Izaya’s composure, except rush him headlong into the same heartstruck collapse that he first felt on the pavement behind the high school long years in his past. Shizuo is older, taller, dressed differently and less fight-dusty; but his eyes are the same, and Izaya still feels the other’s gaze run him through with all the agonizing force of a lance. It was stupid to run, stupid to stay away, stupid to pretend to himself for even a moment that distance would ease this connection that Izaya can feel aching in the very marrow of his bones, as if the iron in his blood is begging to spill itself over the magnet of Shizuo’s existence. Izaya can’t look away, can’t pull back, can’t extricate himself from the impossible force of Shizuo’s steady stare, of Shizuo’s attention fixing to him like a spotlight, like sunlight against a plant too long hidden in darkness; but it doesn’t matter what he does or doesn’t do, because Izaya has barely caught Shizuo’s eye when the other turns his head to look away and back to the tray of half-eaten sushi on the table before him.

Izaya stares at the back of Shizuo’s head, feeling like he’s been stolen from the surface of the world only to be abandoned in midair, left to freefall without even the comfort of a parachute at his back. His heart is racing, his hands are shaking, he feels as if that single moment of connection was electricity coursing through every part of his body; and Shizuo _looked away_ , turned his back on him as if he didn’t see him at all. Izaya knows what connection exists between them, would be sure beyond doubt even were it not for the scar of his own knife-cut drawn to a mirror image across the span of his own chest; for Shizuo to turn aside from that like it’s not even there, as if it’s something he can dismiss as easily as he tosses aside impossible weight, is a rejection Izaya feels as clearly as if that lance through him has been yanked free to leave him to bleed out onto the tile floor underfoot. He stands still for a moment, struck to silence by the casual blow of that absolute force sliding off him as if he’s unimportant, as if he’s uninteresting, as if he doesn’t _matter_ ; and in the span between one breath and the next Izaya can feel years of careful isolation crumbling around him, can feel all his dug-in intent to hold his distance collapse into the vivid, immediate need for vengeance for that dismissive glance away. His shoulders ease, his weight shifts, his whole body adjusts itself to fit his intention, and when Izaya takes a step it’s to stride forward, to move towards Heiwajima Shizuo for the first time since that transcendent first meeting.

“Shizu-chan,” he calls, swinging the adrenaline in his chest into lilting mockery, drawling over the shape of the other’s name as he approaches. Shizuo’s head jerks around, his gaze swinging up to fix on Izaya with startled speed, and Izaya is waiting for him, flashing the edge of his teeth into a grin as he comes in to brace his hand at the edge of Shizuo’s table and lean in to lay claim to the comfortable space around the other. “It’s been a while. Remember me?” Izaya doesn’t wait for a reply; he doesn’t think the pressure in his chest will let him pause for breath, and he doesn’t really want to know the answer in any case. “Orihara Izaya, from high school. What a coincidence running into you here like this.”

Izaya rocks back onto his heels, letting his weight swing to the side to make an elegant curve of the shape of his body bracing against the edge of Shizuo’s table. “It must be fate, don’t you think?”


	8. Memory

Shizuo remembers Izaya.

It’s been years since he saw the other. High school graduation had put a close to even what vague acquaintanceship Shizuo could have claimed from the sharing of a single mutual friend and a brief, violent first meeting, but even in the years that have gone past unruffled by the other’s physical presence Shizuo’s memory of his old not-quite-classmate remains frustratingly, shockingly vivid. He told himself it was no more than an obsession, a flicker of something that might have been a crush born in that first shock of appreciation for the most beautiful person he has ever laid eyes on; distance and time were sure to fade it, to wear free the details of Izaya from Shizuo’s mind and leave him finally able to drop that odd not-relationship in his past to be forgotten by the passage of years. But time has done no more than the distance they kept in high school ever achieved, until when the door to Russia Sushi came open behind him Shizuo felt the awareness of the other like a shiver down his spine, as if someone had reached out to press a palm close against the back of his neck. He had turned without thinking, responding on instinct more than on thought, and when his eyes landed on Orihara Izaya standing in the doorway of Shizuo’s favorite sushi restaurant there hadn’t even been a sense of surprise. It had felt natural, expected, as if Shizuo has spent all the years since graduation just waiting for the inevitability of this day, when his path and Izaya’s would be drawn back into alignment once again.

Izaya hasn’t changed much. He’s a little taller, Shizuo thinks, a little tenser at his mouth; some of the softness of childhood that clung to his face even in high school has given way, clearing angular shadows under the rise of his cheekbones and setting the press of his lips into greater clarity. But his eyes are as bright as ever, they seem to call the light of the room to settle behind the weight of his lashes, and his hair is that same impossible sheen of black as endlessly deep as the darkest hour of night. He’s wearing an oversized jacket that hangs heavy over his shoulders and weights down his arms to hang half-over the elegant curve of his fingers, and beneath it his clothes are just as dark, cast into varied shades of black or deep grey as if to make a walking shadow of his whole existence, but his shirt clings to his body as surely as his pants do, covering every inch of skin from his neck downward while still giving a suggestion of the lithe grace of the form beneath. Shizuo’s attention slips downward for a moment, trailing the set of Izaya’s long legs and tracking the dip of his waist in the shadow of his coat; then Izaya lifts his hands to push his hood back from his face, the motion enough to pull Shizuo’s attention back to the elegance of his features and the curve of his mouth, and Izaya’s gaze slides sideways as if Shizuo’s attention were a shout to draw his attention.

Shizuo turns away at once. There’s no point to denying his focus, no chance of pretending disinterest when he’s been so caught out in exactly his appreciation, but the shock of being seen staring jolts him back to himself and reminds him of his own position, of his own existence. Orihara Izaya is beautiful, the most breathtakingly gorgeous person Shizuo has ever seen, and age has only brought the elegance of his features into greater clarity; and he is not for Shizuo, however much aesthetic appreciation and the immediacy of desire may wish otherwise. Shizuo’s course is set, printed to scar a map on some stranger’s form to mark out the person he is meant to be with rather than the beautiful, unblemished man standing in the doorway behind him. Izaya has a soulmate of his own, found or waiting still, Shizuo doesn’t know and it’s none of his business to ask; what he does know is that Izaya isn’t for him, and he’s not for Izaya, not when there’s someone else waiting for him in the world.

It’s the first time, Shizuo thinks, that that thought feels more like a burden than a comfort.

He doesn’t look back. He can feel Izaya like a magnet, as if the other’s very presence is a physical force demanding him to turn, to look, to speak; but Shizuo ducks his head over his table, and fixes his gaze on his meal, and fills his mouth with another bite of food instead of with speech. Izaya saw him looking, to be sure, but it was only for a moment, only a brief glance of attention; surely he must be accustomed to attention following him wherever he goes, Shizuo’s momentary indiscretion can be of no great import to him. Shizuo stares at his meal, willing Izaya to leave, willing him to turn aside, willing as much distance between them as he can invent; and then there’s a voice, “Shizu-chan,” lilting Shizuo’s name into an illusion of intimacy, and Shizuo’s focus jerks around immediately, shocked out of his own keeping by the sound of that voice and the mockery of that name. Izaya is coming forward from the doorway, his gaze fixed on Shizuo as his lips pull tight onto the tension of a smile; when he draws near he catches his hand at the edge of Shizuo’s table, bracing his arm into a long line of support as he rocks his whole weight sideways to recline himself to elegance. “It’s been a while. Remember me?”

Shizuo can’t answer. There aren’t words strong enough to encompass the affirmative he wants to give, no speech he can find for himself that speaks truth to span the years he has spent haunted by Izaya’s smile, the nights he has lain awake wondering if he will ever be able to be free of the obsession that one violent meeting stabbed through him. Luckily Izaya isn’t waiting for a reply; he’s still speaking, tipping in farther against the edge of the table like he can’t figure out how to hold still while his smile spreads wide to cut across the whole of his face.

“Orihara Izaya, from high school.” His lashes dip over his eyes; when he raises them again it’s only fractionally, just enough to cast his gaze through the shadow up at Shizuo in front of him as if to make an innuendo out of the mundanity of his speech. “What a coincidence, running into you here like this. It must be fate, don’t you think?”

Shizuo frowns up at Izaya over him, struggling for anger as the only defense he can muster against the trembling awareness of Izaya in front of him, of Izaya watching him, of the distance so small he imagines he can breathe in and taste the other’s presence in the air. “It’s not that much of a coincidence,” he says, attaining something like a growl in the back of his throat more from the strain in him than from true irritation. “I eat here almost every night.”

“But I’ve never come in before,” Izaya lilts in that same sing-songy tone, as if he’s affecting the illusion of friendship between them. “If I hadn’t tonight we could have gone on missing each other forever. What a shame that would have been.”

Shizuo snorts and finally manages to duck his head to break free of the magnetic draw of Izaya’s gaze. “Yeah, I’m sure you would have _hated_ that.”

Izaya rocks back. It’s a tiny motion, not something Shizuo thinks he would notice if he weren’t paying attention; but he is paying attention, his whole existence framing itself around the tilt of Izaya’s hips and the dip of his lashes, and when Izaya’s languid recline at the edge of the table tenses into brittle stress for a breath Shizuo can feel it as clearly as if Izaya had shouted his discomfort. It’s only a moment; then:

“What are you talking about, Shizu-chan?” Izaya says, his voice so smooth it’s as good as proof of his deliberate facade. “I always love catching up with old friends.”

“Sure you do,” Shizuo says. “But we’re not old friends.” He lifts his head to meet Izaya’s gaze full-on; even braced for it he feels the force like a physical impact. “You always hated me.”

Izaya’s eyebrows jump towards his hairline in an expression of surprise so sudden that Shizuo actually believes it to be unfeigned. “What?” he says, and his teasing lilt is gone, given over to flat surprise as certainly as shock has chased suggestion from his features. “I never hated you.”

Shizuo scoffs. “Sure you didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” Izaya repeats back. “I…” He shakes his head as if he’s shedding a stray thought. “I never hated you, Shizuo.” The dark arc of his brows draws together, the corner of his mouth twitches towards amusement. “What did I ever do to give you such an impression?”

“You--” Shizuo starts, and then closes his mouth sharply to cut off whatever he might blurt out. There are a thousand tells, a dozen moments of Izaya turning aside as Shizuo looked at him, his persistent refusal to join Shinra for lunch, his demonstrated willingness to spend time with any and everyone so long as that someone wasn’t Heiwajima Shizuo. But they all sound foolish now, petty tallies of a childish dislike that make Shizuo’s shoulders hunch on self-consciousness even to think of saying them, and in the end he holds the bitterness back on his tongue in favor of ducking forward and frowning at his meal. “It doesn’t matter.”

There’s a pause. Izaya doesn’t move, either closer or away, and Shizuo can still feel the other’s gaze lingering on him, but he doesn’t look up. His heart is still beating too fast, adrenaline is still filling his veins with shaky expectation, but anticipation is starting to twist into nausea as he lingers in it, until he almost wishes Izaya would just leave again. Time hasn’t been able to break whatever spell those eyes laid on him in the moment of their meeting, distance has done nothing to soften the force of the want Shizuo can feel in him like a second heartbeat thrumming through all his body, but at least he didn’t have to talk about it before, didn’t have to navigate the scope of his own illicit desire with an audience there to judge and see. Maybe if Izaya leaves Shizuo can find his way back to the peace he has been so content in, can return to some measure of the patient calm that he has managed to make out of the loneliness of his life; so Shizuo keeps his gaze down, and when he reaches for another bite of sushi it’s with the deliberate intent to indicate the conclusion to this conversation.

Izaya doesn’t leave. He stays right where he is for a time, lingering while Shizuo works through his pointed bite of food; it’s only as the other is reaching for the cup of tea at his elbow to swallow a mouthful that he takes a breath and straightens from his lean at the edge of the table.

“I seem to have led you astray,” Izaya says, speaking in a careful tone rather than the sugar-sweet lilt he began with. “High school was a trying time for me. I’d hope you, if anyone, could sympathize.” Shizuo glances up in spite of himself; Izaya is still watching him, his mouth quirking up higher on amusement as at some joke Shizuo isn’t privy to. “Surely you won’t begrudge me the right to regret my more childish mistakes?”

Shizuo swallows the mouthful of tea he’s just taken and sets his cup down harder than he should. “Do whatever you want.”

Izaya’s smile flares out across the whole of his face. “Excellent,” he purrs, and pivots on one heel to turn aside from Shizuo next to him. Shizuo’s chest tightens, his breath clenching like a fist as Izaya moves away, but Izaya just catches his grip at the far side of the table and swings himself around the support to drop into the empty seat on the other side from Shizuo with as much grace as a dancer. He rests an elbow against the edge of the table and leans in to catch his chin in his hand before smiling across the narrow span of the surface between them. “Let me buy you dinner.”

Shizuo gapes at the other, caught so off-guard by this that he can’t even think to reach for the anger that could certainly be justified. “ _What_?”

Izaya’s smile doesn’t flicker. “To make up for high school.”

Shizuo shakes his head. “I told you it was nothing.”

Izaya’s eyebrows lift. “You _did_ forget,” he says, _tsk_ ing over the sound to make it a judgment. “I did do at least one thing.” And he reaches out across the distance of the table, moving so quickly that Shizuo doesn’t have time to flinch back before Izaya’s fingertips are touching the front of his shirt and sliding over his chest. Shizuo can feel the friction draw across his skin, matching itself perfectly to the straight-line scar hidden under the fabric of his shirt before he jerks back from the table and out of Izaya’s reach.

Izaya’s smile flickers wider, his eyes dip towards shadow. “See,” he says. “I owe you an apology.” He withdraws to the other side of the table to recline back towards apparent comfort in his chair but Shizuo doesn’t relax. “Buying your dinner is a start at least, isn’t it?”

Shizuo frowns at Izaya, scowling with as much weight as he can bring to the expression, but Izaya doesn’t so much as flinch under the force of his clear unhappiness. “It doesn’t matter to me,” Shizuo says, finally, growling over the denial of the words. “I get scars all the time.” He hunches in over the table again, still keeping his eyes on Izaya in case he lunges over the distance again, but Izaya makes no move to sit back up or even lift his hand from its easy drape over the edge of the table, and Shizuo looks back to the meal in front of him. “If anyone you should be apologizing to my soulmate.”

Izaya takes a breath, a tiny inhale of air as if he’s been shocked; but when Shizuo looks back up his smile is still firmly in place and his eyes are as dark as ever. “I suppose you’re right,” he says in as light a tone as the one he began with before tipping his head to look ostentatiously around the room. “I don’t see them around, do you?” He looks back to meet Shizuo’s gaze once more. The corner of his mouth pulls up onto a lopsided smirk. “Let’s just start with you to begin with.”

There’s an implication there, a suggestion for the future or at least of some kind of repetition that Shizuo isn’t sure he wants to agree to. But Izaya is smiling at him, however dangerous the cut of that smirk might be, and his eyes are as bright as they have ever been, and all the years apart haven’t given Shizuo the strength to say no to the lure of that gaze.

It’s strange, how much the surrender feels like a homecoming.


	9. Negotiation

Shizuo remembers almost none of his meal that night.

He eats it, to be sure. At some point his plate is cleared, and he drinks enough refills of his tea that Simon stops offering him more, leaving Shizuo’s cup to slowly dry where he’s pushed it to the side of the table to be forgotten. But his attention is on things other than the immediate fact of his meal, all his focus scattered from its regular paths and left to reform around the point that he has spent so long trying to remove from his thoughts and that has returned as easily as if all Shizuo’s efforts only left a hollow space waiting to be filled by Izaya’s return.

Izaya is as bright as Shizuo remembers, as brilliant as all Shizuo’s least-acknowledged daydreams painted him. Shizuo spent all the years of high school and an embarrassing number after graduation thinking about Shinra’s friend, whom he barely exchanged enough words with to convey their names; the distance that followed between them granted the object of Shizuo’s frustrated interest a near-mythological quality, without any more rational basis for his attention. Shizuo built Izaya up in his mind, expanded upon those very few details he knew with vivid, excessive imagination, until the person he made Izaya to be in his head was something incredibly, impossibly real. It had been some comfort to him, in the years that have passed since, as he turned aside from that old ache and fit himself into the comfort of a steady, quiet life, to think that Izaya must be no more than human, that the reality could surely never live up to Shizuo’s built-up image of the enigma the other made of himself.

Izaya doesn’t match Shizuo’s expectations. He’s more than them, sharper and brighter and clearer, as if he has stepped forward from the backdrop of the world in which Shizuo has always moved and into a reality that saturates his existence with color, that turns the dark of his hair to an impossible, inky black and brings out shading of crimson and scarlet from his eyes that shouldn’t be possible, that shouldn’t be able to catch and hold the weak light in the restaurant the way they do. Izaya moves like a dancer, as if every step is choreographed, as if he’s an actor on the stage he has made of the world itself around him; and as the audience, whether intended or convenient, Shizuo finds himself utterly, helplessly enraptured by every word Izaya says, by every shift of his wrist and curl of his lips. He feels himself played upon, as if Izaya is reaching out to lay his fingers against strings of response that Shizuo never even knew were there at all, and even feeling himself so used Shizuo can’t find his way free to offer anything but the absolute focus that Izaya draws to himself as surely as he draws the glow of the light.

Shizuo isn’t the one who suggests leaving. His food is long since gone, the remains of his tea dried to no more than a haze at the very bottom of his glass, but there is no curtain to sever the connection between himself and the allure of Izaya’s secretive smile and Izaya’s dark eyes, and so Shizuo remains, trapped in the uncomfortably hard wooden chair beneath him and not feeling anything but the heat under his skin and the rhythm of his heart pounding on unreasonable force in his chest. He would stay there for hours, he thinks, through the night and past closing time in the painfully early hours of the morning; but in the end it’s Izaya who pauses in the flow of his pattering conversation to slide a hand into his pocket and draw out a phone with as much flourish as if he’s doing a magic trick.

“It’s getting late,” he says, after a glance at the screen so brief it hardly even serves as the token attention it is meant to convey, and he sets his palm at the table to get to his feet without waiting for any sign of response from Shizuo himself. “I don’t know what kind of exciting hours you keep, Shizu-chan, but I’m afraid I need to bow out of any further entertainment.” His phone returned to his pocket, Izaya lifts a hand to delicately cover his mouth as he offers a yawn that feels more a show than anything else he’s offered the whole of the evening. “I can hardly miss out on my beauty rest.” When he drops his hand he’s smiling instead of looking drowsy at all, his lips curving up on amusement that drags harder at one corner of his mouth than the other. The angle makes pleasure into a smirk, suggests at secrets hidden behind the flickering dark of his eyes that Shizuo isn’t invited to share.

Shizuo blinks, feeling as if he’s missed several steps of a dialogue that has carried on inexorably in his absence. “You’re leaving?”

“That is generally what those words mean,” Izaya says, stepping around the edge of the table and past Shizuo sitting at the other side. “See you around, Shizu-chan.”

“Wait,” Shizuo says, turning to track Izaya’s motion as the other strides away from him. “Izaya-kun!” Izaya doesn’t pause, doesn’t turn; there’s no sign whatsoever that he’s heard Shizuo’s call, although the restaurant only has a handful of lingering patrons and far less sound filling it than it did when Izaya came through the door. “ _Izaya!_ ” Izaya lifts a hand to wave a farewell without turning; Shizuo growls in the back of his throat and shoves back from the table before him, pushing hard enough that the table moves as much as his chair does and his empty cup topples over to roll dangerously close to the edge of the table. Shizuo fumbles to catch it as it slides over the edge, barely saving it before it hits the floor, and by then Simon has come over to offer a array of incoherence that might be reassurance or condemnation, Shizuo can’t be sure and doesn’t pause to find out. He says something -- apology, he hopes, but it’s hard to think about the words he’s saying -- and starts to push past Simon to the door before a hand closes at his shoulder with a grip painlessly gentle but still as ungiving as running into a steel-reinforced wall.

“No good, Shi-zu-o,” Simon rumbles, still with his usual broad smile painted across his face. “Eating and going is no good for friendship, no good for business.”

Shizuo blinks at Simon, too distracted and off-balance to understand the shape of the other’s words. “What?”

“You need to pay.” That’s from the chef behind the counter; he hasn’t even looked up from sharpening one of his sushi knives. “We don’t do tabs even for regulars.”

“Payment important,” Simon informs Shizuo. “Friends pay, stay friends.”

Shizuo looks back to the door where Izaya has just left. “He said he’d buy me dinner.”

“Izaya is gone,” Simon says. “You are here.”

Shizuo thinks about protesting further, about arguing the point or just shoving past Simon’s hold on his shoulder; but he’d surely do damage to the crisp white of his shirt if he forces himself free, and it’s not as if he didn’t intend to buy himself dinner, however frustrating Izaya’s broken promise may be. Most importantly of all: every second that he remains to argue is a second for Izaya to get farther away, to wrap himself further in the shadows of the city and vanish himself from Shizuo’s hold again.

“Fine,” Shizuo says, and reaches into his pocket for his wallet. Simon eases his hold until the weight of his hand feels more like a friendly pat than a deliberate grip, but he keeps his hand where it is until Shizuo has dragged free a handful of bills enough to more than cover the cost of his usual meal. “Here.”

“Thank you,” Simon beams, letting Shizuo’s shoulder go to accept the bills instead. “I will get change for you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shizuo says, waving Simon aside as he moves unobstructed towards the door. “It’s a tip.”

“Oh, very good, very good!” Simon lifts a hand to wave after Shizuo. “A good night to you, Shi-zu-o!”

“Thank you for your business,” the chef says, still without looking up, and Shizuo doesn’t wait for any more of a send-off. The restaurant door is propped open to serve as invitation to potential customers; Shizuo steps past it at a speed enough to be very nearly a run, emerging onto the shadows of the nighttime street before he stops, uncertain of his direction. There are a few people scattered along the sidewalk; the late hour has thinned the crowds that usually line the main streets, but there’s still a steady stream of couples or office workers or tourists walking individually or in pairs. It’s not enough to provide any kind of a disguise to one person, even one dressed in the shadow-dark clothes Izaya is wearing, but Shizuo doesn’t see any trace of the other, even when he squints and pulls off his habitual sunglasses to give him better vision in the dim lighting.

Izaya must have turned off the main street, or made it all the way down to one of the crossroads to lead him elsewhere in the city; an impressive feat, given how briefly Shizuo delayed, but not one Shizuo is in much of a mood to applaud at the moment. His heart is racing with adrenaline, his shoulders hunching under the line of his vest, and for a moment he can imagine the future, impatient days and dragging weeks collecting into silence, into a peace that feels like nothing so much as the absence of life in his imagination. Shizuo had Izaya right in front of him, his smile and his voice and the smell of his hair; and now he’s gone, vanished through Shizuo’s grip before he even had a chance to stop him going. Shizuo should have grabbed at his sleeve, should have held onto him by force in spite of all considerations of politeness and restraint, and it’s just as his fingers are tensing towards the start of a fist at his side that something catches his attention, a whisper of something hot like cinnamon in the air around him. His head turns, his gaze veering to seek out the source, and it vanishes, melting away like it was never there at all. Shizuo frowns, turning to glare out into the night around him, and it comes back, a suggestion of spice hot as smoke in the air. He twists at once to follow it, head lifted to track it through the air, and as he takes a step forward along the street it grows stronger, like a pull leading him down the sidewalk.

Shizuo doesn’t think about following the scent, about tracking whatever it is he’s pinned down at the back of his tongue to fill his lungs with each breath. He just moves, his feet carrying him forward down the sidewalk as if the smell is a physical force to urge him on, to push him down the street with greater focus. It comes stronger as he follows it, until he imagines he can almost see it winding through the air, narrowing from a fog to a thread as he draws nearer, as the pace of his feet approach the source. His heart is racing though he doesn’t know why, his steps carrying him forward with a haste that feels more desperate than idle; it’s only when he rounds a corner onto a sidestreet and blinks to bring his vision into focus on a black coat around narrow shoulders and the shine of moonlight off silky hair that he realizes what it is he’s been following through the city streets.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, the name startled into a gust of breath past his lips in spite of all his intention. It’s far quieter than the shout he offered in Russia Sushi, hardly enough to carry down the half-block between himself and Izaya, but Izaya turns as he didn’t in the restaurant, pivoting on a heel to stare shock back at Shizuo behind him. For a moment they’re gazing at each other, Shizuo breathless on something between relief and anxiety and Izaya with all the deliberate framing of his expression wiped utterly clean by the force of surprise; and then Izaya blinks, and Shizuo moves like the motion was a sign to urge him forward over the distance between them. Izaya takes a half-step back as Shizuo approaches, falling back to face the other fully as he slides the phone he was looking at back into his pocket along with his hands, but he doesn’t retreat more than that initial shifting motion, even when Shizuo draws up to stand just in front of him, breathing as hard as if he had been sprinting through the streets instead of walking.

There’s a moment of silence. Izaya’s collected himself fractionally; the blank shock is gone from his gaze, at least, and he has his head tipped down to cast the details of his expression into the shadow of his hair. But he’s still watching Shizuo, and Shizuo’s still staring at him, until finally it’s Izaya who takes a breath and speaks. “Did you need something from me, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo had been ready to growl protest when he left the sushi shop, had framed anger into the shape of words to spill from his lips like blows. But now, on the quiet of the city street, with Izaya looking up at him from under the smudge of his lashes, all Shizuo’s anger dissolves and reforms under the alchemy of Izaya’s presence, until when he opens his mouth the words he blurts into the air are as much of a shock to him as to Izaya.

“Can I have your phone number?”

Izaya’s eyes go wide, his weight rocks back on his heels. For a moment Shizuo thinks he might actually fall back by a step; but it’s only a breath before he catches his balance and his composure back around him, sweeping calm over the brief giveaway of his expression at the same time he tips forward again to steady his footing. “You chased me halfway across the city to ask for my _phone number_?”

Shizuo scowls. “I don’t have any other way of getting in touch with you.”

“After frowning at me for the last hour I didn’t think you’d feel the lack,” Izaya says.

“I wasn’t _frowning_ ,” Shizuo tells him. “I was _listening_.” Izaya raises an eyebrow and Shizuo groans frustration and pushes a hand through his hair. “Are you going to give me your number or not, Izaya?”

Izaya ducks his head forward to fix his attention to his feet. With his hair falling in front of his face Shizuo can’t see any of the details of his expression; the sense of loss at that is keen enough that he has to curl his fingers into a fist at his side to keep from reaching out and pushing the dark curtain back and away from the other’s features. There’s a pause, long enough for Shizuo to feel the ocean of adrenaline in his veins rise and fall in waves; and then Izaya says “Not,” and lifts his head to look back up at Shizuo again.

Shizuo feels as if Izaya has lifted his hand from his side and slapped him full across the face. “ _What?_ ”

“I’m not going to give you my number,” Izaya tells him, and takes a half-step backwards. “That’s your answer.”

“But.” Izaya’s rocking back over his heel, looking like he’s thinking of retreating outright; Shizuo again feels that urge to grab at him to brace him still, again barely restrains it. “How will I see you again?”

Izaya’s mouth curves onto a smile, so bright and so suddenly that all thoughts Shizuo had of pursuit are knocked free from his attention by breathless appreciation. When he tips his head to the side his hair falls over his face and the illumination of the moonlight slides to mark out a path against the side of his neck.

“Be patient,” Izaya says. “I’ll be in touch.” And he lifts his hand to wave as he turns aside to continue down the street, carrying his smile with him. Shizuo is left standing on the sidewalk looking after him, watching Izaya move away from him and feeling pressure like a weight on his shoulders with every step the other takes. It’s only after the other has vanished from view that Shizuo thinks to offer his own number in exchange for Izaya’s refusal, and by then even the lure of that smell in the air isn’t enough to persuade him to chase the other down a second time. He frowns at the street instead, spending his frustration on his surroundings since he has no better target, and turns to pace out the distance to his home, wondering how long _patient_ requires.

He doesn’t need to worry. His apartment is dark when he arrives, as silent as the phone in his pocket, but by the time he’s stood under the spray of his shower and emerged in search of a late-night glass of milk his phone is blinking a notification, ready to offer a text message from an unknown number as soon as Shizuo picks it up.

 _Hey there Shizu-chan_ , the message reads. _Meet me downtown Saturday morning and I’ll let you buy me a coffee in exchange for dinner._

Shizuo huffs a laugh in spite of himself. _you never bought me dinner tonight, you know_

 _I never said it was tonight I meant_. A brief pause, long enough for Shizuo’s skin to prickle with self-consciousness, before: _Or do you refuse dates on principle?_

It’s the word that does it, _date_ framed into such clarity against the glow of Shizuo’s phone screen. He ought to refuse, he knows; he should have refused from the beginning, when Izaya slid into the seat across from him at the restaurant. But he didn’t then, and now he can see the shadows in Izaya’s hair in the corners of his vision whenever he turns, and the implications of that phrasing, however teasing, are more than Shizuo’s speeding heartbeat can bear.

 _no_ , he types. _i’ll be there._

Izaya’s response comes instantly. _I’ll see you then. Sweet dreams, Shizu-chan._ He’s appended a heart to the end of the message; Shizuo’s glad he lacks an audience for the flush that sweeps up over his face like a burn in response. He hesitates over his answer, fumbling over his reply, his tone, his teasing, until finally he just types back _night_ and shuts his phone off so he can forget about it until the morning.

He doesn’t check for any new messages again, but even three glasses of milk prove insufficient to ease the half-guilty excitement in his chest enough to let him sleep before the clock declares the new day thoroughly begun.


	10. Frivolous

They do go out for coffee. Izaya makes his way downtown as promised, even against all his better judgment advising him against this surrender; and Shizuo is waiting for him at the shop Izaya specifies, looking tense and irritable but very much present, as if he feels the same magnetic urge Izaya did to draw him out of restless sleep and towards their agreed-upon date. Izaya flashes a smile at Shizuo in answer to the other’s frown of greeting, and pushes past him as if he doesn’t feel the ache of forgotten heat in every part of his body, and by the time they’re settled at a table the smile has formed to a mask certain enough to hide whatever reality of emotion Izaya might be experiencing at being so close to the man he has spent so long running from.

It’s not the last time they see each other. Izaya suggests lunch, and Shizuo treats him to dinner, and Izaya follows with drinks, until they’re seeing each other almost every day, sharing a cup of coffee during a break in Izaya’s wandering of the city or meeting to get an order of to-go sushi that they eat at the curb of the fountain in the park before Shizuo goes to his evening shift at the bar. Shizuo is as quick to make the offers as Izaya, and quicker to accept them, and Izaya knows he ought to pull away if he has any intention of maintaining the secret he has fought so hard to keep to himself but Shizuo looks at him from under the shadow of his hair like he can’t help himself, and flushes in answer to the least flirtation Izaya gives, and the intoxication of that so long-desired power is more than Izaya can keep himself from. So he tells himself it’ll be the last with every date they make, and he spends his time alone composing text messages in his head, and when Shizuo says “When are we meeting again?” Izaya has an answer ready as quickly as if he’s been thinking about it over all the intervening hours.

They’re in the park, today, out in the glow of the sunlight that broke free from a storm that forced them indoors for the last few days. Shizuo’s the one who suggested a walk in favor of the lunch Izaya was expecting, and Izaya is hardly going to protest, even if they’ve ended up sharing a bench at the middle of the park instead of pacing around it. Shizuo is sprawled over the far end of the support, one knee angled wide and his arms spread up to span the whole back edge of the bench; his elbow is nearly brushing the sleeve of Izaya’s coat in the closest thing to physical contact he ever initiates himself. Izaya can feel the awareness of the gap between them humming in his thoughts, clear and sharp as electricity arcing over the half-inch between Shizuo’s white sleeve and his dark jacket, but he doesn’t cast his gaze down to watch the space. He looks out instead, watching the other passersby with a smile at the corner of his mouth and his thoughts utterly absent from the information his eyes are taking in.

Shizuo has been silent for some minutes alongside Izaya. He gets tense when they’re speaking, Izaya has found; his shoulders draw up towards his ears, his hands work as if thinking of forming to fists that never quite materialize, his gaze catches at Izaya and slides away with such regularity there’s nearly a rhythm to it. But they’re next to each other instead of across the span of a restaurant booth, or the round of a café table, and it seems the shift in perspective has allowed Shizuo to ease into the peace befitting his name. He’s tipped his head back against the edge of the bench to turn his face almost directly up to the sky overhead and the glow of the light beaming down on them; his eyes were shut behind the shadow of his sunglasses when Izaya last stole a glance at him. That’s all Izaya can bear to do, at the moment; the position that has granted Shizuo such calm has removed his own excuse to stare without making a show of it, and he can’t turn his head without something to say to cover the tell. More even than that is the calm itself, the serenity that has laid itself into Shizuo’s features as if blossoming under the glow of the sunlight. Izaya can feel his stomach swoop whenever he glances at Shizuo next to him, when he sees the easy slump of the other’s shoulders or catches a glimpse of the part of his lips, until he doesn’t know if it’s nausea in him or the ache of want gone so sharp it cuts like a knife in his gut. So he fixes his gaze in front of him rather than sneaking glances at Shizuo beside him, and when he speaks it’s more for the sake of shattering apart the quiet that has surrounded them than with any real intent behind the words.

“That’s an ugly scar.” Shizuo stirs, shifting against the bench alongside Izaya to lift his head and turn towards the other; Izaya carefully keeps his gaze forward, without turning to look at the drowsy haze of focus that must be lingering behind Shizuo’s eyes. “That girl over there.” He lifts a hand to point, taking advantage of the movement to tip very slightly to the side and bump against Shizuo’s hand draped against the bench next to him. “Around her neck, do you see it?”

“Don’t,” Shizuo hisses, and reaches to grab at Izaya’s wrist and pull the other’s hand down as he glares at the other. “It’s rude to point.”

Izaya grins, satisfied as much at having won something more than calm from the man beside him as anything else. “Recognize it?” he asks as he pulls his wrist free of Shizuo’s hold to return his hand safely to the pocket of his coat. “Maybe Shinra got his soulmate identification wrong after all.”

“Don’t be mean,” Shizuo tells him, although his attention is following the girl walking along the sidewalk without even a scarf to disguise the gruesome scar ringing her neck. “It’s been years. If Celty weren’t his actual soulmate he’d know by now.”

Izaya doesn’t blink at Shizuo’s casual reference to Shinra’s presumed girlfriend, although he’s never heard the name before in his life. He’s not about to admit to lagging so far behind in knowledge of their ostensibly mutual friend, though, so he veers the subject aside, dragging a laugh from his throat that takes on a sharper edge from his latent irritation than he fully intended it to. “Of course,” he says, lilting the words to sing-songy amusement. “And I’m sure you know _all_ about how to identify your soulmate. That’s why you haven’t found them yet, right?”

Shizuo’s hiss of reaction is a satisfaction almost enough to make up for the hurt Izaya’s double-edged subject does to himself. “Shut up,” he growls, and pulls his arm in from its drape over the bench to fold defensively across his chest. “I haven’t been looking, that’s all.”

“Come on,” Izaya laughs. “It’s not like it’s all that much of a challenge. As many fights as you’ve been in you must be painted over with scars.” He reaches out to catch at the corner of Shizuo’s shirt tucked in close against his waistband and tug to urge it up and loose. “You could just go around shirtless and I’m sure they could recognize you on sight.” Shizuo growls and smacks Izaya’s hand away and Izaya retreats, letting laughter bubble up his throat as he closes his fingers into a fist against the bruising hurt and pushes his hand into his pocket before looking back to the street. “I don’t understand why everyone is so obsessed with finding their soulmate anyway.”

Shizuo shoves his shirt back into the waistband of his slacks, moving with frustrated haste while his cheeks burn with embarrassment. “I don’t understand why you _aren’t_ ,” he says, speaking towards his efforts at his hip instead of meeting Izaya’s gaze. “Don’t you want to find the one person who’s perfect for you?” Shizuo glances up as he tugs his vest back into place to straighten the black over his shoulder and Izaya looks away immediately, turning to gaze unseeing at the sidewalk again while he summons a smile to his lips in place of the flinch that might try to show itself otherwise.

“Not particularly,” he says with as much indifference as he can muster. “I can’t imagine anyone who would be enough to satisfy me by themselves.”

“Isn’t that the whole point?” Shizuo asks. “You don’t have to imagine them, they just _are_.”

“Says who?” Izaya gets to his feet without taking his hands from his pockets, rising to stand in front of the edge of the bench rather than remaining within reach of Shizuo next to him. It’s easier when he has the wall of his shoulders between his expression and Shizuo’s gaze, easier to catch a breath of air when he doesn’t have to worry about Shizuo hearing him struggle for it. “I want to be able to love everyone in the world.” He spreads his hands wide without drawing them out of his pockets so his jacket spreads out around him like wings; when he turns against his heel it’s to topple himself into a graceful spin to twist and flash the edge of his smile at Shizuo still frowning at him from the bench. “If I have a soulmate it should be all of humanity.”

Shizuo snorts in the back of his throat, still looking up at Izaya with his eyes shadowed by his sunglasses but his mouth softer than Izaya thinks even Shizuo himself realizes it is. “That sounds awfully lonely.”

“Not at all.” Izaya lets his hands fall to pull the pockets of his coat straight down with the weight of his arms to urge them. “I’m not limited by fate this way. I don’t have to sit around waiting for some perfect soulmate to come along. I can be with whoever I want.” He looks down the street at the girl, still barely in sight as she approaches the crossing of two streets. “Her.” The other direction, to a man in a white suit just stepping out of a dark car pulled up before a building. “Him.” And forward, to find Shizuo gazing at him, his arms gone slack and his hands in his lap, the whole of his attention fixed entirely on Izaya before him. Izaya angles his head to the side and lifts his chin to the light, and when he forces his lips to a smile he can feel the pull of it against his face like a wound drawn to blood. “Even you, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo stiffens where he’s sitting, the unthinking grace of his position chased to sudden strain by Izaya’s words. He rocks back against the bench behind him, his hands curl to fists; even the lines of his face harden, his forehead creasing and mouth tighening like he’s feeling the echo of that self-inflicted hurt still curling at Izaya’s lips. “Don’t joke about that, Izaya.”

“I’m not joking,” Izaya says, as lightly as he can force the air from the cage of his lungs. “Unless that’s what you want to call all this.” He lifts his hand to gesture to Shizuo and back towards himself, knitting a web in the air between them with the motion of his fingers. “ _Am_ I a joke to you, Shizu-chan?” Shizuo flinches, cringing to look away and grimace across the park instead of meeting Izaya’s eyes, and Izaya laughs as the only means of easing the strain locking so tight around the span of his chest.

“You should be careful with jokes,” he purrs, taking a step away from Shizuo hunched to immobility on the bench. “You might not like the punchline of this one.”

Shizuo glances up, his attention forced back onto Izaya by the other’s retreat in spite of the discomfort still clear across his face. His mouth falls to a frown and he grabs at the back of the bench to push himself to his feet, lifting a hand as if he means to grab Izaya and stop his movement. “Where are you going?”

“Work,” Izaya says. “I have people waiting on me, I’m afraid.” He bares his teeth to flash in the illusion of a smile. “And I don’t want to make your soulmate jealous.” He lifts his hand in a wave, the gesture as flippant as his words, and then he turns away, twisting against his heel to stride away from Shizuo still staring at him from the park bench.

Izaya spends the rest of the daylight indoors, in offices or department stores or bustling cafés, but even by the time he’s walking home by the pale cast of moonlight, he can still feel the glint of sunlight glowing gold off Shizuo’s hair thrumming in the frantic-fast beat of his heart in his chest.


	11. Intent

Izaya is playing with fire.

He knows it. He knew it that first moment in the sushi shop, when his focus cut through the distraction and sound and color of dozens of people to seek out the stare of the only one that matters, when he felt efforts that have spanned years crumble and collapse just for a dip of lashes and the shift of a mouth. He reached out for the burn when he crossed the restaurant, when he smiled a mocking greeting, when he let himself slide into the familiarity of flirtation for something that cannot possibly be casual, not when the whole infinity of everything he has ever wanted is encapsulated in the bartender uniform on the other side of the table and the focus of those dark eyes under bleached-blond hair. Izaya has never been afraid of self-destruction -- his distance from Shizuo for the whole of high school and university speaks loudly enough to that, he thinks, if the dark scar of the knife wound at his hip didn’t carry the point -- but this goes beyond that, into the realm of sun worship while bearing wings of wax, and Izaya can feel the distance to the ground growing with every day that passes.

He can’t stop himself. Maybe he could have, at the beginning, if he had made the clean escape he had attempted; if Shizuo hadn’t followed him over the span of five blocks just to ask for his number, if he hadn’t sounded so breathlessly desperate in his demand for such. Maybe Izaya could have chilled the fire that burns so relentlessly in his blood at the immediacy of Shizuo’s presence, and existence, and reality, maybe he could have talked himself into the dregs of bitter comfort that he has used to build the fortress of self-defense that crumbled so quickly to no more than a shift of Shizuo’s head. But that’s an illusion, even Izaya can’t persuade himself into the true belief that he would have stayed away; and it doesn’t matter anyway, because Shizuo did, did come after him and did look at him and did exist, in the thousand little idiosyncrasies that pull at Izaya as if hooks custom-made to fit themselves under his skin and around the shape of his ribs and pull him in nearer.

There is still some comfort. In a world determined to draw he and Shizuo together, in the face of the allure that Shizuo carries with as much unknowing grace as he bears his strength, in the collapse even of Izaya’s determination to tear his own heart to pieces rather than admit to whom it belongs: Izaya has held back the single, vital piece of information, the last thing he has left exclusively to himself free of the influence of fate or Heiwajima Shizuo or anyone else. Before every meeting with Shizuo -- increasing in frequency and intent until it’s not even a joke, anymore, to call them _dates_ \-- Izaya takes himself to his bathroom, and turns on every light lining the top of the mirror to illuminate his skin to unflinching clarity, and he paints in the gap in his eyebrow, and the tracery of a scar at his lip, and the straight-line mark that runs over the corner of his hand and across two knuckles. Sometimes he does more: shadow for his lashes, maybe, or a smudge of color to make his mouth look softer or fuller, to see how long he can get Shizuo to stare at his smile before he realizes what he’s doing; but the mask goes on first, to hide away those tells that would be enough, for someone observant and suspicious enough. Shizuo is neither, as far as Izaya can tell, but occasionally he comes out with flares of startling insight that drop Izaya’s stomach on panic before he can reassure himself of his own care in hiding the evidence of their connection, before he can review the ever-increasing proof that Shizuo believes his soulmate to be elsewhere, that Shizuo isn’t even contemplating the possibility that the man next to him might be that same romantic endpoint that Shizuo has spent all his life looking for.

Izaya can’t believe, sometimes, that Shizuo could be so blind to his feelings to not second-guess the proof of his eyes. Sometimes when Izaya is waiting for Shizuo to arrive at one or another of their outings he would swear he can feel Shizuo’s approach in his very bones, as if he might be able to lift a hand and point to the other from across the whole distance of the city with absolute accuracy. It seems impossible that Shizuo could feel that same ache that’s in Izaya’s chest every moment they’re in sight of each other and many when they’re not and not know beyond any shred of doubt to whom all his pining is leading; but whatever else Izaya may be unsure of, he’s certain Shizuo is as poor an actor as his brother Kasuka is skilled, and Shizuo believes Izaya and his soulmate to be different people, whatever he may feel.

In actual fact Izaya doesn’t know _what_ Shizuo feels for him, he realizes as he’s standing at a crosswalk waiting for the shift of the light to let him stride over the intersection along with the handful of others standing there. Most of the crowd are office workers, armed with paper cups of coffee against the hours of work still ahead of them, or middle-aged women out for shopping trips or in clusters of laughing friends. There’s only a pair of high schoolers; ditching school, judging from the hour of the day, but if being on a date is their only reason to leave class Izaya thinks they can hardly be very good students. The boy is slouching next to his girlfriend, looking bored and irritable in every line of his body; for her part the girl doesn’t even seem to notice, from the intent she’s turning on the screen of her cell phone. Izaya can see a thin line against the girl’s hairline, half-hidden by the heavy makeup she’s wearing but done without much attention to the task, so Izaya can still match the mark to the more obvious scar that runs a line along the boy’s forehead and up towards the stiff point of his bleached-out pompadour. They’re one of the younger crowd, who find their soulmate early by chance or intention; and yet they stand at the crosswalk like strangers, looking as if they’ve hardly spoken three words to each other in their life. Izaya thinks the girl would protest more for him snatching her phone than punching her boyfriend, if he were to make an experiment of it; the awareness of that churns his stomach with nausea that has nothing to do with the fist fight that would likely ensue. Izaya can’t so much as keep his distance from Shizuo, Izaya feels the connection of his soulmate like a physical weight tangled into the most intimate spaces of his existence; but there’s nothing that says Shizuo must feel the same, nothing to prevent Shizuo from being as indifferent to Izaya himself as the high school delinquent is to his girlfriend beside him. Maybe Shizuo hasn’t realized Izaya is his soulmate because he feels so little for him, because he’s looking for a cataclysmic effect on his unbelievable life and finding something ordinary, as forgettable as the mundanities of life must be to someone like him; and Izaya turns sharply and cuts across the other crosswalk instead, moving fast into the blinking warning symbol so he can make it across the distance in time. He barely does -- the cars waiting accelerate while his second foot has yet to land at the sidewalk on the far side -- but Izaya doesn’t slow, just turns to continue back down the adjacent street at a speed enough to belie his lack of destination.

It’s an unpleasant thought. It’s flickered in his mind before, during the years apart when insomnia kept company with the morbidity of late-night imagining: that maybe Shizuo never felt anything at all in that first meeting, that maybe he doesn’t even remember Izaya for the years of absence that followed their too-brief interaction. Perhaps Izaya has been holding onto a secret Shizuo would never have suspected in the first place; perhaps he can have what he always claimed to want, and live his entire life as unmatched as those unfortunates who are left alone by a childhood accident or a sudden illness or the self-destructive choice of a depressed mate. The idea should be freeing, should be a relief to all the strain Izaya has felt since that first fateful meeting, all that bitterness he has carried since long before that; thinking about it now just makes Izaya feel the vertigo of it, as if he’s standing on a distant ledge instead of solidly on the ground and feeling the tug of wind against his too-large coat threatening to sweep him over the lip and into an endless fall.

Izaya’s not going anywhere in particular. He had a vague destination in mind at the crosswalk, a thought of visiting a tea shop he prefers or maybe the internet café a few doors down, but there’s nothing at all on this side of the street, and he’s moving towards the industrial district. He doesn’t stop, though, doesn’t slow his pace; for once the thought of people is unsettling, as if the sight of unhappy couples might slip from his grip of usual sardonic amusement to cut and bleed some mortal wound. He keeps his head down and his shoulders hunched, moving fast enough to give himself some excuse for the frantic pace of his heartbeat and the rasp of his breathing in his lungs, and when there’s a shout of “ _Izaya-kun!_ ” it’s the voice he recognizes before the shape of his own name.

Shizuo’s on the other side of the adjacent street, a straight line of sight but a pair of crosswalks away. It would be easy for Izaya to lift a hand in a wave and turn to vanish himself into the network of alleys and dead-end streets that make up this part of the city; instead he pushes both hands into his pockets, bracing himself to the most graceful show of boredom he can adopt, and he waits with his head angled to the side for Shizuo to come to him. Shizuo’s in his usual bartender uniform although his shift doesn’t start for hours yet; Izaya’s never seen him wear anything else, no matter when they meet up. Shizuo waits for the lights to change before he crosses, even though there’s only a truck rumbling past one intersection and no one at all at the second, until Izaya’s mouth is quirking on a smirk in spite of himself by the time Shizuo is coming up to him along the sidewalk.

“You don’t look like you’d be such a stickler for legality,” he observes as Shizuo draws into closer range. “You could just throw aside any cars that came at you, couldn’t you?”

Shizuo frowns at him. “The light was red,” he says, as if this is a full explanation in itself, but he’s not really frustrated and Izaya can see it in the smooth of his forehead and the focus of his eyes. “I didn’t think I’d see you today.”

Izaya lifts one shoulder into a shrug. “I thought I’d drop by and surprise you.” Shizuo rocks back on his heels, his eyes going wide; Izaya lets the surprise linger for a moment before he huffs into a laugh that shows all his teeth in a grin. “I’m joking, Shizu-chan. I had no idea you were going to be out here. Did you pick up extra work helping unload freight from delivery trucks?”

Shizuo makes a face at Izaya’s laugh and ducks his head to look away. Izaya tries, and fails, to resist imagining a flicker of disappointment across the other’s face. “No,” he says, reaching into his pocket for a box of cigarettes so he can draw one free with frustrated haste. “I had lunch with Kasuka. He’s filming a new action movie in one of the empty warehouses out here.”

“Ahh,” Izaya says, holding onto his smile as Shizuo fits the cigarette to his lips. “So it was your brother you were meeting? Thank goodness, I was sure you were cheating on me when you turned down my offer yesterday.” Shizuo’s fingers tense, his cigarette crumples to a spill of loose tobacco over his hand, and Izaya’s grin drags wider as the other’s briefly averted gaze swings back to stare shock at him.

“I’m _not--_ ” Shizuo starts, fumbling himself out of coherency and into a flush before he’s even finished the denial. “ _We’re_ not. I--” He closes his mouth and colors up all the way to his hairline. “Are you joking again?”

“Of course I am,” Izaya tells him. “We’re only seeing each other casually. It’s not as if our relationship is exclusive.” He rocks his weight back onto his heel, just to angle his hips into suggestion; from the tension in Shizuo’s shoulders, the other is expecting him to bolt out of range at a moment’s notice. “After all, you’re just passing the time until your soulmate shows up, right?”

The color fades from Shizuo’s cheeks, the red of embarrassment giving way to pallor even under the tan the sunlight has laid into his skin. He grimaces at something left unsaid and looks away from Izaya’s face again, down to the ruins of the cigarette caught in the palm of his hand. “Yeah,” he says, but the word is softer than usual and comes without any of the force that conviction would bring. “Right.”

“Right,” Izaya repeats, still smiling even though Shizuo isn’t looking up to see him. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.” He takes a step back, properly this time instead of just the show of it; Shizuo looks up at the motion, his eyes dark under the shadow of his hair and his mouth still set to a flat line, but Izaya just drags his smile sharper at the corner and angles his head into a tilt. “I’ll let you get back to your afternoon then. Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?”

Shizuo grimaces and shakes his head, looking like he’s trying to steady himself in his own existence as he lifts his free hand to shove through his hair. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

“Great,” Izaya says. “I’ll text you the name of the restaurant later tonight.” He takes another step back and draws his hand from his pocket to wave. “Bye, Shizu-chan.” He turns without waiting for a response, swinging around the fixed point of his heel to walk away with deliberate elegance; he only makes it a few steps before:

“Izaya!” shouted at a volume enough to echo off the buildings around them.

Izaya pauses in his stride and turns just enough to glance over his shoulder at Shizuo. “Yes?”

Shizuo’s expression is a picture of stress, from the crease at his forehead to the set at his mouth to the rise of his shoulders. His fingers tighten over the remains of his cigarette, he opens his mouth to speak; and then his shoulders slump, his hand falls to his side, and whatever he was going to say is lost to a grimace instead. “See you tomorrow night.”

Izaya’s smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Yes,” he says. “I’m looking forward to it.” And he turns away again, leaving Shizuo staring after him with such intensity that Izaya can feel the ache of it tugging like a knot at his chest urging him to turn back around.

He doesn’t look back, doesn’t return over the distance to Shizuo’s side; but when he makes it back to the crowds and the couples downtown, he doesn’t have to struggle to hold onto the smile at his lips.


	12. Calibrate

“Really, Shizu-chan,” Izaya lilts as he reaches over the table to lay claim to the last of the appetizers set on Shizuo’s side of the restaurant table. “I was only teasing. Not everyone is as serious as you are all the time.”

“Shut up,” Shizuo says, frowning so hard at his plate that Izaya thinks his own thievery has gone entirely unnoticed. He wonders if he shouldn’t have made an attempt to take a bite directly from Shizuo’s plate, if the other’s lingering frustration wouldn’t have distracted him enough to make such an ostentatious assault feasible. “This isn’t something you should joke about. Relationships are serious.”

Izaya rolls his eyes to speak his disdain for this while his mouth is occupied with his newly acquired food. “Maybe they are for you,” he says when he can speak again. “That doesn’t mean they have to be. It’s just _dating_ , it’s not like it’s a marriage proposal.”

“We are _not_ dating,” Shizuo says, although his voice is a little less certain than Izaya suspects he intends it to sound. “We’re just meeting up occasionally.”

Izaya raises one eyebrow as high as he can get it. “‘Occasionally,’” he repeats, and he does reach out for Shizuo’s plate, then, successfully claiming a bite of food before Shizuo growls and swats his hand away. “This is the fourth day this week I’ve seen you, Shizu-chan. Any night I don’t see you you’re texting me on all your work breaks.” He rocks back into his chair and reaches out to pick up his cup of tea to make a deliberate show of sipping from the edge of it. “What exactly are we missing, to be _really_ dating in your eyes?”

Shizuo grimaces and looks away towards his own cup set at the far side of the table from Izaya’s own. “You text me as much as I text you.”

“You’re dodging the question,” Izaya tells him without flinching. “What would make these dates for you? Physical contact?” He braces an elbow at the table and reaches out to ruffle his fingers into Shizuo’s hair; Shizuo jerks back as soon as Izaya makes contact, pulling away so hard his chair slides an inch over the floor, but Izaya just flares a grin at him as he withdraws the momentary touch. “Is it where we go? When we meet up? Is it that we don’t get dressed up?” Izaya tips his head forward and flutters his lashes with deliberate effect at Shizuo. “I could wear a skirt and heels for you if you wanted, Shizu-chan.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Shizuo says, but his mouth is twitching and when he reaches out to push at Izaya’s arm it’s with the unthinking ease that he offers whenever he forgets to be self-conscious. “You don’t have to crossdress for me.”

“Mm.” Izaya rocks back into his chair, slouching against the support in deliberate imitation of Shizuo across from him. Shizuo’s grinning, the tension of embarrassment stripped from his position; he clearly thinks the conversation has moved on, that the point of danger has passed with the ease of a joke. Izaya looks to his cup of tea, reaches out to touch his fingers to the handle of it as Shizuo picks up his own and brings it to his mouth; it’s just as Shizuo starts to swallow that Izaya speaks as lightly as if there was no pause at all in the conversation. “Or is it that we’re not fucking each other?”

Shizuo doesn’t spit tea all over the table, which Izaya is more than a little impressed by. His throat does knot, the motion of his swallowing stalled out by the shock of Izaya’s words, and the sound he makes is so strained that for a moment Izaya wonders if he isn’t going to actually inhale the tea in his mouth and asphyxiate right there across the table. But Shizuo manages to land his cup safely at the edge, and duck forward to shadow his face in his hair as he coughs wetly into the cover of his hand, and Izaya is left to watch him, grinning at the success of this landed point while Shizuo collects himself enough to rasp over speech for some kind of an answer.

“You can’t--” Shizuo gasps, sounding at least as strangled by his own words as by his struggles with his tea. “You can’t just _say_ that.”

“No one’s listening,” Izaya says without so much as glancing at the very few other patrons in the restaurant, all of them so distant they didn’t even glance around at Shizuo half-suffocating in his tea. “What’s the matter, Shizu-chan? Don’t you want to take me to bed?”

Shizuo’s jaw tightens even as his cheeks darken with color more than what flush is already there from his coughing fit. His gaze veers away from Izaya’s, his attention fixing hard against the inside edge of the table rather than across at the other; his hand flexes on the handle of his teacup until Izaya can hear the ceramic creaking protest to the force. “I’m not going to _sleep_ with you.”

“You make it sound like a torment,” Izaya says, without commenting on the fact that Shizuo has absolutely not answered his question. “I have it on good authority that sex isn’t a bad form of entertainment. I’m told it can even be pleasant, in some circumstances.”

“Shut up,” Shizuo says, with significantly more sincerity on the command than he mustered for Izaya’s teasing earlier. His face is scarlet, now, all his skin suffused with heat until he looks like the victim of a particularly bad sunburn; it makes Izaya’s imagination slip sideways to wondering how Shizuo would take an actual proposition rather than just the hypothetical of one, to wondering how that color would darken and shade with the press of fingers trailing against his chest, how the set of his mouth would tighten with the pull of a fist in his hair, how the dark of his pupils would blow wide under the impulse of pleasure arching in his spine and flexing in his thighs. Izaya shifts his weight in his chair, uncrossing and recrossing his legs as subtly as he can, but Shizuo isn’t looking at him to see the motion anyway. He has his head down, as if the shadow of his hair will achieve anything at all to mask the color staining the whole of his features, and from the way his throat is working Izaya thinks his attention is rather occupied by his own distraction anyway. “I can’t do that to my soulmate.”

It speaks to Izaya’s distraction that his thoughts slip sideways on Shizuo’s words, skidding into an abrupt freefall as he misunderstands the actual meaning of the other’s statement. All he has left to himself is that one secret, that single point of unacknowledged truth he’s been hoarding to himself; and yet in the heat aching under his skin his thoughts read knowledge into Shizuo’s words, take a meaning opposite from the one intended. For a moment Izaya feels like he’s toppling, as if the whole of a world he has always taken for granted is coming out from under his feet; and then rationality catches up with the illogic of hope, and Izaya feels the impact of gravity returning as if he’s hit ground hard enough to shatter both his legs with the force. He coughs a sound in his throat, feeling like it’s been knocked out of him more than given up as the amusement he intends it to be, and it’s only Shizuo’s distraction that gives him the chance to drag a smile onto his lips and pull himself back into something like composure before the other sees the look on his face.

“You’re kidding,” Izaya says, and pushes back hard enough from the edge of the table to make his slouch into the support of the chair behind him the punctuation it feels. “You’re _saving_ yourself for someone you don’t even _know_?”

Shizuo looks up at Izaya from under his hair. His face is still scarlet, the color under his skin refusing to fade, but his eyes are dark with frustration and the set of his mouth is tense with anger, Izaya thinks, more than self-consciousness. “It’s not like they’re a stranger,” he snaps. “They’re my _soulmate_.”

“Sure,” Izaya drawls with as much mocking as he can put on the word. “And you’re going to woo them with the gift of your honor like some old-fashioned maiden, is that it?”

Shizuo growls in the back of his throat. “I want it to be special,” he says, before he tips his head down to return his attention to the grip of his fist around the handle of his teacup. “It _should_ be special. Why would I go to bed with someone I know I won’t stay with?”

“Because,” Izaya says, pulling the word into a taunt made the sharper by the backhand of that _won’t stay_ , by the assumption of Shizuo’s words that always makes Izaya’s deliberately kept secret feel like a burden enough to crush all his bones to dust. “Because it’s fun. Because it’s not that important. It’s just sex, Shizu-chan, it’s not like you have to propose to every person you put your dick into.” Shizuo’s cheeks shadow with another burn of red and Izaya’s mouth drags wider on a grin that he doesn’t even try to soften. “I wouldn’t blame _my_ soulmate for sleeping with every person in the city, if they wanted to.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Shizuo asks, and lifts his gaze from his cup to meet Izaya’s more squarely as he has over this whole conversation. His mouth is still set towards the angle of a frown and his cheeks are still dark with all the self-conscious color that lit him to glow with the first drift of Izaya’s conversational topic, but his eyes are certain in spite of that, and when they catch Izaya’s Izaya feels himself as locked on the spot as if Shizuo has run a skewer straight through the center of his chest to pierce his aching heart. He stares back, unable to look away, unable to respond, barely able to breathe at all, as Shizuo blinks hard and frowns himself into coherency. “Wouldn’t you want them to share that with just you and no one else?”

Izaya feels himself laid bare, as if Shizuo has stripped him down to skin with his attention, as if every one of the other’s words is a brand to mark his flesh to burn Shizuo’s existence into him, to prove the reality of that impossible connection in echoed-over marks on Shizuo’s scar-kissed body. But Shizuo doesn’t know, the tension of repressed desire at his jaw and the stress at his forehead prove that as surely as his fumbling words, and Izaya doesn’t know how Shizuo can’t see through his glass-clear façade but he’ll take what he can get, as long as he can manage it. So Izaya lets the irony sing through him, lets the hurt pull to a grimace at his lips, and when he opens his mouth it’s to give voice to the agony in the form of a laugh as razor-sharp as the edge of a blade in clear sunlight.

“No way,” he says, and folds his arms over his chest as he lifts his head into the seeming of self-confidence, into the illusion of assurance he doesn’t feel. “I don’t want to have to bother with the basics. Better that they get all the experience they can. I don’t care if they’re a porn star if they can fuck like one.”

Shizuo hisses past his teeth and drops his hand from his teacup to shove at the edge of the table and push himself back instead. “You’re awful.”

“I’m rational,” Izaya corrects. “It’s only logical, Shizu-chan.” He leans back into his chair with as much calm as he can muster. “Anytime you want to get some hands-on experience, you know who to call.”

“No,” Shizuo says, and gets to his feet in a rush. “I’m leaving.”

Izaya lets his arms fall from their angle over his chest. “You said it was your treat tonight.”

“And you still owe me a dinner,” Shizuo says. When he looks down at Izaya on the far side of the table his flush is almost gone, embarrassment stripped free from his skin to leave just the red burn of anger high across his cheekbones. His eyes are dark on Izaya’s; whatever softness might be in them is lost to the shadow of his hair. “We’re even, this way.”

“Fine,” Izaya says, and leans over to reach for Shizuo’s cup on the far side of the table. “Don’t give yourself tendonitis keeping your bed warm on your own.” Shizuo grimaces and lifts his hand to flip Izaya off; Izaya just laughs as he brings the cup to his lips to fit his mouth to the print of Shizuo’s lips on the far side. He makes a show of swallowing, tipping his head back to draw an elegant line of his neck, and Shizuo huffs and turns away without waiting to see Izaya down what’s left of his tea. Izaya keeps his head back so he doesn’t watch Shizuo leave, so he doesn’t see if Shizuo looks back to see if he’s watching; it’s only after he’s certain the other has gone that he lowers the cup again and returns his attention to the table. There’s not much left: just Izaya’s tea, now that he’s finished Shizuo’s, and the array of empty plates scattered before him. Izaya looks at the dishes for a long minute, the proof of two patrons and the empty chair to indicate that his partner has left; and then he shoves back from the table, and finishes his own tea at once before striding away to the front of the restaurant to pay without waiting for a check.

He keeps his phone out the whole walk home, checking forum posts and responding to chat messages, but there’s no notification of an incoming text, even as he comes in the door to his apartment. Izaya considers the screen for a moment, the dark background and the absence of messages, and then he tosses his phone aside, and casts his jacket atop it, and goes to lie in bed awake with what he tells himself are the effects of caffeine and not the whispers of loneliness against the inside of his too-silent apartment.


	13. Vacant

The week that follows is one of the longest Shizuo has ever known.

It’s not as if he doesn’t know how to exist in a world without Izaya. He did it for years, for all the span of high school and the years of gainful employment that have followed after; it ought to be a relief, if anything, to fall back into the familiar structure of peace and quiet that used to be his private domain, without the constant stress of half-formed desire and full-formed guilt that invariably follows whenever Shizuo so much as glances in Izaya’s direction. But even a few weeks of regular outings prove enough to crumble all the foundation of his happiness, whether he calls them _dates_ or otherwise, and Shizuo finds himself dragging through each day that passes in silence and filling his time with nothing more productive than scowling at his phone or typing out the start of text messages he deletes before he ever sends them.

He doesn’t want to be the one to break the silence. Their last interaction was the closest thing to a fight they’ve had since the drama of their first meeting, although Shizuo can’t place why that conversation bore such teeth at its edge. Izaya needles about everything, Shizuo’s work and Shizuo’s family and always, always about soulmates, that one subject on whcih they can never come to terms on. It’s as if Izaya read the weakness of Shizuo’s guilty conscience in his eyes and promptly dedicated himself to picking at it like a scabbed-over wound to ensure the ragged edges of a scar would form, until Shizuo can count on the subject coming up no matter how innocuous the topic they begin with.

He doesn’t know if it’s that his temper has been slow-fraying all this time, giving way to greater fragility with every drag of friction from Izaya’s commentary; maybe it was more the blow of a knife, a razor-edge formed of Izaya’s dark eyes and soft mouth and Shizuo’s own absolute, agonizing desire that bore through Shizuo’s patience and sent him storming out of the restaurant. Shizuo could feel the tension building in him with every word Izaya spoke, a poison weighting itself to mortality, until he had forced himself to his feet in lieu of swinging out and across the distance to Izaya on the other side. He doesn’t know what he would have done, if his fingers would have turned to a blow to shatter the clean line of Izaya’s cheekbone or if his grip would have fisted to drag that shining hair in and crush the patter of Izaya’s mockery off the other’s lips with the force of his own; he doesn’t know which he’s more afraid of. So he had left, striding out through the city with no attention to where he was bound, until when he finally came back to something like composure he was miles away from where he began, lost in the Shinjuku district instead of the vicinity of his own apartment. He had had to take a train home, scowling the whole way until no one so much as met his eye, much less offered small talk, and he had gone to bed without typing even an apology into the suggestion of his glowing phone screen.

Maybe it would have been easier if he had sent it then. It would have been a start, at least, could have paved the way to mending the wreck Shizuo’s temper made of their dinner; but Shizuo wakes to nothing from Izaya, and in the disappointment of that he can feel temper turning bitter and resistant to keep him from reaching out first. He stays silent, talking himself into the rationale that he deserves an apology, that he won’t cave until Izaya recognizes his error and asks for forgiveness; and the days go by, and there is no text, no call, no Izaya anywhere in Shizuo’s life. His meals are bland, his hot chocolate tasteless; even the air seems heavier, as if it’s missing some vital component to keep Shizuo’s life moving smoothly forward. Shizuo doesn’t know what he’d do if he caught that whisper of Izaya’s scent again, if he parsed the least suggestion of the other’s presence; he likes to think he wouldn’t track it across the city to throw himself in desperation at the other’s feet, but Shizuo’s never been very good at lying to himself. It doesn’t matter anyway: there’s no chime of a phone notification, no murmur of cinnamon in the air, no bell-like bright of laughter over Shizuo’s shoulder, and Shizuo is left entirely to a peace so thorough he would swear he can feel himself suffocating as if in a coffin.

He doesn’t know what to do. More than once he thinks of texting, of sending some off-hand comment or a casual invitation or even just an apology, the simple fact of _sorry_ cast out into the space between them like the start of a bridge to return to the agonizing, overbright, painful ecstasy that Izaya brings with him by his very existence in the span of Shizuo’s life. But he doesn’t, from the guilt and the hurt and the pride blending together into a cocktail of dangerous intoxication, and he smokes twice as many cigarettes as usual and achieves half the calm. His phone stays quiet, only humming with the occasional greeting from Celty or invitation from Kasuka, and Shizuo spends his too-long evenings lying on his couch with smoke wreathing his head and tracing along the edge of the scar under his shirt until he remembers what he’s doing and stops himself for the handful of minutes it takes him to return to the forgetful habit.

That’s what he has waiting for him after work tonight, just the same as he has every night this week. It’s hardly something he’s looking forward to; but the city is drowsy with the weight of the night pressing down on it, and he hardly has anywhere better to go. His only concession to his own unhappiness is to walk instead of taking the train; it’s three times as long to pace along the streets instead of waiting at the station, but there’s a comfortable rhythm to his stride, and at least when he’s walking Shizuo can lose some measure of his own stress in the simple fact of moving. The extra consideration -- that spending more time on the street makes it easier for someone to catch a glimpse of him and call out to him from across a crosswalk, or along the sidewalk, or from an overpass -- he tries not to think about, if only for the inevitable disappointment it will bring. It’s still there, though, in the back of his head, until Shizuo has to hunch his shoulders and duck his chin in towards his chest to wrap himself in the closest thing to armor he can find to protect from accidental hope. He doesn’t look at the people around him, doesn’t listen to the distant shouts from faraway voices; in fact he’s doing such a good job ignoring his surroundings that he feels the hum of his phone in his pocket before he notices the ringing tone that is intended to more directly draw his attention.

He doesn’t recognize the number on the display when he lifts it to frown at the screen. There’s no name linked to it, no indication of the identity of the caller on the other end; it’s a wrong number as likely as anything else, or a salesperson offering some deal Shizuo doesn’t want, or even a prank caller about to make an absurd request before hanging up in a rush. There is no reason at all for Shizuo’s heart to skip onto a faster pace, for his breathing to strain in his chest, for his grip to tighten at the edges of his phone, but the lack of logic doesn’t stop him from squeezing the plastic in his grip until it creaks before he taps to pick up the call and bring the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“ _Shizu-chan_ ” and Shizuo isn’t surprised, exactly, but the feeling of hope satisfied instead of disappointed jolts through the whole of his body as if he’s caught his foot against an unexpected incline and is stumbling forward in the attempt to save himself from falling. His pace stops dead on the sidewalk, his forward motion utterly abandoned in favor of turning himself into a statue in the middle of the path, but he’s not paying attention to the people veering around him or the huffs of frustration at barely-avoided collisions, because the whole of his focus is instantly, irrevocably drawn to the sound of that voice at his ear. “ _How’s your evening going?_ ”

“Izaya,” Shizuo breathes, sounding starstruck even to his own ears and utterly unable to ease the strain from his voice. “It’s you.”

There’s a pause, so brief Shizuo isn’t sure he didn’t imagine it, before: “ _I’d hope so_ ,” as lightly as Shizuo has ever heard from Izaya. “ _Are you drunk?_ ”

Shizuo shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I just got off work. I’m on my way home.”

“ _Oh good_ ,” Izaya’s voice purrs in Shizuo’s ear. “ _You’re out already._ ”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, and then, with more haste than he wants to show but exactly as much restraint as he’s master of, “Do you want to meet up somewhere?”

“ _I ate already_ ,” Izaya says, rejection falling as quickly as a blow. Shizuo’s heart sinks, his shoulders slump, but Izaya’s going on already without waiting for a response, and his next words bring all the tension back to Shizuo’s body at once. “ _Why don’t you come over for drinks instead? You could let me play bartender for you._ ”

Shizuo stares out at the street in front of him. He knows what he wants to say, knows where he wants to be, what he wants to do; as clearly as he knows what he _should_ do, if he has any measure of self-preservation left in the destruction Izaya always makes of his self-control. He presses his lips together and swallows himself into a frown. “I shouldn’t.”

“ _It’s not that late_ ,” Izaya lilts. “ _You’ve worked hours later than this on other nights, you can’t tell me you’re tired._ ” Shizuo tightens his jaw and shakes his head, not caring that Izaya can’t see the motion, that the rejection will be borne entirely on the current of his silence on the other end of the line. There’s a pause, a moment of quiet against Shizuo’s ear so absolute that he wonders for a moment if Izaya hasn’t hung up, if he isn’t intending to meet Shizuo’s silence with more of the distance they imposed on each other over the last week. But then there’s a draw of breath, an inhale so close against the receiver that Shizuo can feel it as if Izaya’s lips are skimming the weight of his collar, and: “ _Please_ ,” Izaya says, so quietly Shizuo is sure the answering rhythm of his heart in his chest is enough to drown it out. Shizuo’s eyes go wide, his breath catches hard enough that he thinks Izaya must hear it, and into the echoing quiet of his thoughts his chest strains and his lips blurt an answer before he can think.

“Okay.”

“ _Great_ ,” Izaya says, immediately, speaking so brightly Shizuo is left blinking and wondering if he heard that desperate plea at all. “ _I’ll text you my apartment address. Get here fast before the ice cubes melt._ ” And the line goes dead, clicking to complete silence while Shizuo is still standing shocked-still in the middle of the sidewalk. He draws the phone away from his ear, pulling it back to stare at the screen, and almost as soon as the call timestamp vanishes it’s replaced by an incoming text message from _Izaya-kun_ , rather than the new number he called from. The address contained within is several blocks away on foot, nearly a fifteen minute walk even at a brisk pace, but Shizuo’s feet begin to move again as soon as he parses the street name, and by the time his phone is back in his pocket he’s almost jogging along the sidewalk towards his destination.

He shouldn’t go. He knows that, even if the abrupt cessation of a week of mutual silence weren’t enough to prove the point. Nothing is solved: all the rough edges of the argument they have been having all this time are still there, ready to cut both of them to bleeding with a single unwary move. And there’s the simple fact that Izaya is bad for Shizuo, that even as his heart pounds on adrenaline in his chest he can feel his stomach knotting heavy with guilt as much for his own excitement as for anything else. Nothing has changed from that first night at Russia Sushi; sometimes Shizuo thinks nothing has really changed since that moment on the schoolyard, when Izaya’s smile stole his breath and an open blade drew a line of blood across his skin. There’s still that aching desire, only made deeper and more thorough by the intervening years, and the more Shizuo leans into it the more he knows it will hurt to pull free when the inevitable day comes to bring Izaya’s soulmate or his own into their lives. Shizuo knows this, knows all of this, tells himself each logical conclusion over and over as his feet beat out a rhythm against the pavement and his legs offer a dull ache of protest for the haste of his speed; and his phone stays in his pocket, and the blocks give way to his shoes, and when Shizuo finds the number from Izaya’s text he turns into the front gates without pausing to look up to the glass windows of the expansive apartment building looming over him.

He’ll refuse the invitation, Shizuo decides while he’s pacing over the lobby of the apartment building and waiting for the chime of the elevator to announce the arrival of the car to carry him to Izaya’s floor. He’s come this far, and he can’t find the strength in him to avoid seeing Izaya’s smile; but this is a bad idea, and he needs to tell Izaya as much. He’ll knock at the door, and when Izaya answers Shizuo will tell him the truth: that he wants him too much, that it’s agony to see him and not have him, that it’s self-preservation and not anger that pushes him away. They’ve spoken of Shizuo’s unknown soulmate a dozen times, Izaya drags at the subject every chance he gets; surely he will understand, on Shizuo’s behalf if not his own, why Shizuo is so insistent. Shizuo sets his jaw, and hunches his shoulders, and when the elevator doors come open he steps into them to wait out the ride up to Izaya’s floor.

It’s a long trip. Izaya’s at the very top of the building, and there are enough floors for Shizuo to work over the speech he’s going to give three times before he arrives; but it still feels too fast, when the doors open to spill him into the length of a silent hallway. Shizuo stands in the elevator, feeling his heart pounding on such speed he thinks of just riding it back down again, but when the doors start to shut on him he reaches out to hold them open and steps out into the hallway, determined at least to handle himself with a measure of courage since composure is too much to hope for.

Izaya’s apartment is at the very end of the hallway. It’s a nondescript door, heavy enough to shed Shizuo’s knock as soon as he tries to give it; it takes him a moment to see the doorbell at the side of the frame. That produces a chime from the interior, muffled by the door but still clear enough for Shizuo to hear, and he retreats to stand in front of the frame and curl his hands to fists in his pockets while he tries to remember the framework of the words he wants to offer.

The door opens with no warning at all. Shizuo’s not consciously paying attention to the sounds from inside -- his thoughts are occupied enough in the swirl of his own mind -- but there’s not so much as the shout of a voice, not even the audible thud of a footfall against the floor before the door moves, swinging open with as much grace as if it’s an extension of Izaya himself. Shizuo startles back, caught off-guard in spite of himself, and from the inside of the apartment Izaya flashes the white of his teeth into an answering smile.

“Shizu-chan,” he lilts. “It’s always a pleasure to see you.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo says, caught off-guard as much by Izaya’s appearance as by the graceful warmth of the words. He’s still himself, of course, still bearing all those marks of astonishing beauty that have stolen Shizuo’s breath at their every meeting, but he’s shed some of the layers that Shizuo has come to take for granted without even thinking of them. His shoes are gone, leaving the dark of his pants to cling all the way down to the bone of his ankle, exposed to a strange kind of vulnerability by his bare feet. His shirt is the same as ever, one of the endless array of long-sleeved black shirts that cover him from neck all the way down to angular wrists, but his oversized jacket is entirely absent, stripped away to leave his dark hair uncovered for the same light that is fitting itself to the graceful length of his fingers bracing alongside the edge of the door. Izaya’s thinner than Shizuo realized, slender across his shoulders and in the shape of his body laid bare by his missing coat, and it’s then that Shizuo realizes where his thoughts are tending and jerks himself back into order at the same time he forces his gaze to meet Izaya’s dark-lashed stare.

“I didn’t come over for drinks,” Shizuo starts, forcing himself into the words more from the inertia he built up over the blocks to get here than from a conscious decision; something for which he’s particularly grateful at the moment, given the haze that seems to have descended upon him with this unexpected glimpse at Izaya as framed by domesticity instead of his public persona. “We need to--”

“Catch up,” Izaya says, so smoothly Shizuo feels the words stolen right off his lips, as if Izaya’s lilting reply has pulled the air from his lungs to leave him voiceless with his rejection half unfinished. “It’s been a while, you know, I thought we could take an hour or two for ourselves. And it’ll be better to have some peace and quiet for once, don’t you think?” Izaya takes a step to the side of the doorway, stepping clear of the motion of the door to leave a path for Shizuo’s gaze to follow inside as he lifts his arm to gesture broadly towards the interior of the apartment. “You don’t mean to stay out on the front step like a stranger, do you Shizu-chan? Come in, I’ve been expecting you.”

It’s not the lilt in Izaya’s voice that does it. Shizuo is used to that, at least, if nothing else; he knows how bright that tone swings, knows how little truth there is under any of its shading or behind the dip of those dark lashes over Izaya’s waiting gaze. Izaya is teasing, himself as much as Shizuo, making a mockery even of the invitation that brought such desperation from him over the phone before; that should be enough to stiffen Shizuo’s shoulders and lock his knees and send him into exactly that self-preservative retreat that he was intending to claim when he came through the front gate to the apartment complex. But Izaya lifts his arm to gesture into the apartment, and Shizuo’s gaze follows the dark line without any thought in his head at all, and the space catches his attention even more effectively than the elegant silhouette Izaya is making of himself against the line of the doorway.

Izaya’s apartment is enormous. Shizuo can see the sprawling shape of it even from where he’s standing: the sheer distance from the door to the windows on the far side is outrageous, and the windows themselves are more so, spanning the bottom edge of the floor all the way up to a ceiling that promises a second story curving around and over the first. Shizuo can see rows of bookshelves against one wall, crammed with books and notes and labelled with categorization as careful as that as of a library; there’s a desk in front of the window with an obviously expensive chair pushed back from it, and a long couch, outfitted with a pair of throw pillows on either end and a low coffee table in front of it. There’s nothing else on the couch or the table, no indication of a magazine or a book or even just a glass of water; the only sign of living that Shizuo can see is at the desk by the window, and that just a coaster with a mostly empty glass of tea set against it and a few papers spread out across the surface. The apartment is enormous, luxurious in its sprawling size as much as anything else, and in the first glimpse Shizuo has of it he thinks he’s never seen anything so coldly lonely in his life.

He looks back to Izaya. The other is still standing at the edge of the door, still with his lips curved onto a smile and his head canted to the side as if to make a lure of the pale of his neck; but the bright of his eyes and the angle of his smile seem tense against the backdrop of that empty apartment, against that space large enough for a dozen and occupied by only one. Shizuo thinks about turning his back, about rejecting Izaya’s overt suggestion and making his excuses and returning back to the nighttime shadows along the street below, and he can see it as clearly as a picture, Izaya hunching in over his computer screen in a room going darker and darker with the deepening of night on the other side of those huge windows, the hours passing him by uncounted, with no one to urge him into the relief of bed. It strikes Shizuo like a blow, a knife sliding past the barrier of bone and muscle to land precisely against the rhythm of his heart, and it’s only his fingers curling into a fist in his pocket that keeps him from lifting his hand to press against what feels like an open wound.

Izaya’s smile is flickering. His eyes are still fixed on Shizuo, his attention still locked with complete focus at the other’s face, but his mouth is starting to tense, strain is beginning to set in along his jaw as he holds to his smile. “Have you gone deaf in the last five minutes, Shizu-chan, or do you just enjoy seeing me play the maid for you?” His laugh is only a little more natural than his smile and it seems to take the strength of the expression from his lips as well. “I think I can dig a costume out of my closet upstairs, if you’d be into that.”

Shizuo shakes his head. “No,” he says. He uncurls his fingers in his pocket and lifts his hand to push through his hair, feeling his resistance bleed out of him along with the motion. He heaves a sigh, tasting resignation on his tongue, and then he drops his hand to his side and steps forward over the threshold and into Izaya’s apartment.

Whatever else he may be able to bear, Shizuo doesn’t have the strength to walk away from Izaya adrift in his beautiful, empty life.


	14. Addiction

Izaya occupies himself in the kitchen as soon as the door is shut behind Shizuo. Shizuo’s grateful for the other’s distraction, even if it’s more a show than anything else; it’s good to have a minute to himself, even if he’s sure now that any attempt at composing himself is doomed before it begins. There’s an intimacy to his presence here, he can feel it even before he pauses by the entryway to slide his shoes free to set into a careful line alongside Izaya’s; the self-consciousness that comes with the sight just of their shoes side-by-side is enough to hunch his shoulders to painful tension and turn him away to pace through the rest of the space, feeling like a caged animal in spite of the expansive room around him. There are hints into Izaya everywhere he looks, glimpses of a life that Shizuo hasn’t seen for all their outings; Shizuo doesn’t know if he’s more intrigued by the insight or afraid of gaining any closer connection than the too-much he already has. He does knows that it’s frustration against his shoulders, knotting tighter with every row of books he glances at and every glimpse he catches of the streets of the city below, at this proof that for all his flirting Izaya hasn’t let Shizuo anywhere near who he really is until tonight, has never really offered any kind of vulnerability in exchange for all the thousand ways he’s insinuated himself into Shizuo’s life until his absence feels like the numb loss of a phantom limb. Shizuo stands at the edge of the living room, frowning unseeing at the papers scattered over Izaya’s desk and wondering if Izaya even noticed the days of silence, if he takes Shizuo’s company so lightly it’s hardly a difference from the brittle isolation that must fill this room with no one to occupy it but its resident; and then there’s a voice, “It’s bad manners to read someone else’s diary” almost at Shizuo’s shoulder and Shizuo jumps so badly he nearly hits Izaya’s arm as he jerks around to glare at his unseen audience.

Izaya is quiet anywhere, Shizuo knows, more likely to give himself away with the deliberate trill of that laugh in the back of his throat or the bright of a shout of Shizuo’s name than by the sound of the footfalls he seems to offer more from intention than necessity, but even in the silence of the apartment he moves so softly Shizuo didn’t hear any part of his approach. Izaya’s almost on top of him, close enough to touch his fingers to the back of Shizuo’s neck if he wanted, close enough for Shizuo to reach out and wrap an arm around his shoulders; he leans back as Shizuo’s arm lifts in half-defensive motion with the other’s turn, his smile quirking against his lips as he raises an eyebrow and the pair of cups he has in either hand.

“I come in peace,” he drawls, unravelling the words to teasing as he lifts the glasses as if in offering. “Grant me my life and I’ll be your willing slave forever.”

Shizuo growls an exhale in the back of his throat. “Shut up,” he snaps, and reaches to grab one of the glasses from Izaya’s hand. He takes a step backwards as he accepts it, aiming to put more distance between himself and the temptation of Izaya’s eyes with something like subtlety, but he’s not sure he succeeds in any measure in either. Izaya’s still too close, still near enough that Shizuo can taste the smell of his hair in the air, until he grimaces and ducks in to swallow off a mouthful of the drink and burn the smell away under the sharp of the alcohol that rises up his throat and stings at the back of his nose.

Izaya hums over amusement at the back of his throat. “Is my company that bad, that you need to be drunk for it?” He lifts his glass out towards Shizuo without bringing it to his lips first. “You didn’t toast, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo can feel his face flush as warm from self-consciousness as from the ache of the alcohol burning a path down his throat. He reaches out to meet Izaya’s offer with the weight of his own glass against the curve of the other’s; there’s a faint _clink_ as they chime together, and Izaya’s smile goes wider in answer. Shizuo’s spine prickles with premonition, his shoulders tense against whatever name Izaya might put to their toast, but:

“To Ikebukuro,” is all Izaya says, and then he lifts his glass to his lips as if to press a kiss against the rim before he takes a delicate sip against the very edge. Shizuo’s gaze catches to the print of Izaya’s mouth at the glass, tracks the smudge of shadow as Izaya’s lashes dip with his focus, and then he turns his head away to stare at the bookshelves instead as he lifts his own glass to his mouth to chase aside unwary thoughts with the second half of his drink.

“You really are in a hurry,” Izaya observes as Shizuo emerges flushed with the heat of the alcohol burning down his throat and towards his stomach. “I know you must have high standards from your work but surely it’s not _that_ unpalatable.”

“What?” Shizuo looks back to Izaya and frowns. “No, it’s fine. It was good.”

Izaya raises both eyebrows, this time, but: “Sure,” is what he says, however he may drawl the word, and when he reaches out it’s to catch the bottom of the glass in Shizuo’s hold. “I’ll take this, since you’re done.” Shizuo surrenders the cup and Izaya turns away to bear it back to the kitchen, bringing his own to his lips to take another sip as he pads across the floor on absolutely silent feet.

“You can sit down,” he calls back without looking around as he sets the cup at the counter alongside the sink. “Unless one drink isn’t enough to let you bear my presence?” He does look back at that second, tipping his head to cast his gaze back over his shoulder at Shizuo; Shizuo can feel his face heat in answer more to the look in Izaya’s eyes than the glow of the alcohol spreading slow from his stomach.

“It’s fine,” Shizuo says, because it’s a far easier answer to give than trying to explain that he hardly needs assistance towards intoxication when Izaya is around him. He thinks he could be drinking oolong tea and still be as heat-dizzy as he feels now in making his way around the edge of Izaya’s desk to retreat towards the L-shaped couch spreading itself into the open space that makes up the main living room of the apartment. Shizuo sits at the edge of the longer side, claiming one cushion and leaving the rest of the couch free if Izaya wants it, but when Izaya returns from setting Shizuo’s cup down it’s to perch at the arm of the couch next to Shizuo and brace one hand against the support of the back, close enough that the weight of his sleeve almost touches the other’s hair. Shizuo looks sideways at Izaya, unsure whether he wants more to protest the unnecessary proximity or lean in to savour it, but Izaya appears as entirely calm as if the desperation on his voice over the phone earlier never happened at all, as if Shizuo regularly comes over to hunch into discomfort on his couch as the clock moves itself towards the small hours of the next day. He still has his own glass in his hand, braced into elegant familiarity between his fingers; when he lifts it to his mouth to swallow Shizuo has to look away again just to keep from staring at the movement of Izaya’s throat over the liquid.

The apartment is very quiet. Izaya’s clothes must be silk-soft; Shizuo can’t hear any indication of the other’s movements, even as close as they are. Or maybe it’s just the distraction of Shizuo’s own thoughts that makes his every action feel like an earthquake, as if the least motion will topple the strange, fragile peace between them and drop Izaya off the couch either to the floor underfoot or spilling into Shizuo’s lap. He stays still at the edge of the couch, flexing his hands in his lap and trying to not flinch every time the crisp fabric of his shirt crinkles, while beside him Izaya shifts with pristine elegance, not making so much as a murmur of sound before he leans forward suddenly to set his empty glass down hard at the edge of the coffee table.

“Alright,” he says, his voice veering towards the chill of determination now instead of the purr of seduction he offered when Shizuo came in the door. “Either you’re going to have another drink or I’ll find some other way for you to relax, Shizu-chan. You’re as good company as a statue would be.” He straightens from his lean forward to set his drink down and slides his hand back from where it’s been all but brushing Shizuo’s hair to brace just behind his own hips instead. When he uncrosses and recrosses his legs the motion is as graceful as a dance. “What can I do to get you to give up some of your nerves?”

Shizuo’s shoulders tense. “I’m not _nervous_.”

Izaya looks unimpressed. “You are,” he says, and then there’s a touch at the back of Shizuo’s neck, the ghosting weight of fingers at his hair that has Shizuo jerking back and twisting to smack Izaya’s wrist away. Izaya lets his arm swing wide without resistance, but the smile he’s wearing when Shizuo looks back to his face speaks far more loudly than any gesture might. “I’m not going to bite. It’s only been a week, nothing’s changed.”

Shizuo wishes Izaya weren’t so right. It would be easier to bear this if something were different, if the span of days had cooled the tremor of want in Shizuo’s body and eased the addiction to bright eyes and cutting smiles that has so steered his life since Izaya sauntered back into it. It might even be easier if Izaya showed some sign of acknowledging the intimacy of the moment, of Shizuo being present in the apartment he’s never so much as glimpsed before, on Izaya’s couch and with the taste of Izaya’s alcohol still burning an aftertaste on his tongue. Izaya’s casual disregard makes Shizuo feel the more tense, as if he’s walked in on the other stripped down to skin and found himself more embarrassed than Izaya, until the very idea of letting the strain in his shoulders go seems an impossibility. All Shizuo wants is something normal, something simple and easy and comforting to serve as counterpoint to this bizarre situation, to the ache on the back of his tongue and the pain in his chest and the spicy hum of Izaya’s aroma curling itself into his nose, until when he shifts his weight and feels the press of the box in his pocket close against his thigh the answer feels like an epiphany.

“I want a cigarette,” Shizuo blurts, feeling the words turn to truth on his tongue even as he says them. He smokes rarely and usually around Izaya, as much as a means to hide the scent of the other’s skin from his awareness as to unwind the strain that always runs itself through him when he’s in Izaya’s company, but as soon as he says the words he can feel the anticipation of relief rush through him, sagging his shoulders with the weight of the tension he wants to set aside and free himself of, just for the duration of a cigarette. He lifts his head to look up at Izaya and meet the other’s gaze as he reaches for his pocket and braces a hand at the couch in expectation of rising. “I’ll go outside.”

Izaya’s hand catches to close around Shizuo’s wrist, squeezing tightly enough that Shizuo can feel the pressure run up against the flex of tendons under his skin as he moves to get up. “No.” He speaks fast, so quickly the word comes out as more of a demand than a request; it’s enough to lock Shizuo in place where he’s sitting, even with one arm drawn up halfway towards pushing himself to his feet. Izaya ducks his head forward, angling his expression down so his hair falls in front of his face to shadow his features for a moment; when he breathes out it’s with a huff of a laugh, and Shizuo doesn’t know who the subject of his joke is.

“It’s late,” Izaya says, speaking softly as he unfolds his fingers from their desperate hold at Shizuo’s arm. His touch lingers as he draws away; Shizuo can feel the tracery of Izaya’s fingerprints against his skin as if they have branded the weight of the contact against him. “And it’s dark out. You might as well stay in here.”

“It was dark on my way over here too,” Shizuo says, although his attention isn’t on the protest as much as it is on Izaya’s bowed head. “You don’t want me smoking in your apartment.”

Izaya’s shoulders stiffen, Izaya’s head lifts. When he tosses his hair back from his face the gesture carries as much haughty self-assurance as if he’s a king, even before he rocks back to straighten to elegance at the arm of the couch. “I’ll let you know when I don’t want something, Shizu-chan,” he says with biting clarity. “I don’t care if you smoke in here.” He tips his head to the side and casts his gaze through his lashes at Shizuo; the corner of his mouth catches and curls on a smile as he finds the other still watching him. “Let me try a little and you can smoke the whole pack.”

Shizuo snorts. “I just want one,” he says, but he’s ducking his head and reaching to draw the box free of his pocket without waiting for more. It’s a better focus for his attention than Izaya’s face, when the other is smiling at Shizuo the way he is, as if he holds secrets enough for the whole city tangled around the curve of his lips and waiting to be spilled at his discretion; it makes Shizuo feel as if he might find his own most uncomfortable truths waiting on Izaya’s tongue, if he lets the conversation continue. Better to occupy himself in pulling a cigarette free and taking advantage of Izaya’s offer while it still stands, as much for the excuse of having something to look at other than Izaya’s dark eyes as for the temporary relief he might win by a few breaths of nicotine.

Izaya doesn’t say anything, doesn’t offer any of his usual commentary as Shizuo sets the cigarette to his lips and holds a lighter to the end until the paper catches to send a puff of smoke curling up towards the far-distant ceiling. He’s just silent, waiting just at the other’s elbow as Shizuo draws a deep enough breath to start the cigarette and bring the ember to a bright glow before he draws it away from his lips and holds it up in silent offer to Izaya next to him. Izaya reaches out to take the cigarette -- the brace of his fingers against the curve of it is so elegant it seems a seduction all in itself -- but when he lifts it’s to bring it towards Shizuo’s lips instead of his own, offering the print of the other’s mouth for him again.

Shizuo frowns confusion and tips his head to scowl up at Izaya. “I thought you wanted to try one.”

Izaya’s watching Shizuo’s face rather than the cigarette. His smile is all but gone, hardly lingering even as a smirk at the corner of his mouth; his eyes are unreadable, dark as the night outside and just as ready to swallow everything and anything offered to them. “I do,” he says, and gestures again with the cigarette in his fingers. “Take a breath, Shizuo.”

Shizuo stares at Izaya, at the weight of his lashes and the set of his mouth and the dark of his hair, and then he lets a sigh of resignation go, and he leans in to press his lips to the end of the cigarette and draw a long inhale of smoke. Izaya lets him without pulling the end away, lingering until Shizuo can feel the burn of smoke weighting heavy over the span of his tongue before he draws the cigarette away and tips in over Shizuo in front of him. He ducks forward, casting himself into shadow as he leans towards Shizuo’s face, and Shizuo turns his head up in response without needing to be told to do so. Izaya’s shoulders are tense with bracing his forward lean, his body straining with the effort as he tips forward, but when he parts his lips the motion is perfect grace, utterly untouched by the precarious balance so clear in the rest of his body.

Shizuo looks up at Izaya over him, his lashes drawn to half-lidded shadow over his eyes, his hair falling all around the elegance of his features, and then he opens his mouth and lets the smoke curl up from his tongue to Izaya’s mouth. Izaya’s lips open wider, Shizuo can feel the weight of the other’s inhale against his own mouth, and he does what he was always going to do, what was inevitable as soon as Izaya offered the give of his lips so near to Shizuo’s own, and he comes up as if drawn by the other’s breath to press his mouth flush to Izaya’s.

Izaya doesn’t even flinch. He tips his head at once, angling himself into a better fit for his lips to Shizuo’s, and when his mouth shifts it’s to slide over Shizuo’s own, like he’s seeking out the heat of friction as much as the smoke caught between them. There’s a drag of motion against Shizuo’s parted lips, the touch of Izaya’s tongue flickering in to taste the smoke caught in his mouth, and something gives way in Shizuo, some fragment of lingering composure snapping like a branch in a too-strong grip. His breath gusts from his chest, spilling silver to wreathe the locks of Izaya’s hair and stain the air of the apartment, and he reaches up to grab against the back of the other’s neck and drag him down and off the edge of the couch. Izaya topples at once, as bonelessly graceful in his surrender as in everything else, until what Shizuo intended as a means to draw Izaya down onto his lap turns into a tumble that casts Izaya onto the cushions of the couch and urges Shizuo in over him, the weight of his body pinning Izaya down against the soft. Izaya doesn’t seem to mind; he just reaches up with his free hand to fist at Shizuo’s hair to hold the other still while he licks into his mouth, the friction and taste and heat so distracting Shizuo doesn’t even notice Izaya’s other hand braced up to keep the cigarette clear of the couch while the ember fades to cold ash before being dropped and forgotten.

Shizuo certainly doesn’t think of it. The nicotine might have been a relief, but at the moment he’s satisfying a far greater craving.


	15. Glancing

Izaya has always been thrilled by danger. When he was young he found excitement at the edges of tall buildings, at the lip of ledges vertigo-high off the cement of the ground below. As he progressed through high school and then later into university, he found better sources in the polite threats of yakuza members and the edges of knives held by desperate gamblers. He has spent his life seeking out risks, attempting greater and greater feats just from an interest in what the fallout might be, in seeing how far his ever-pushed luck will take him.

Nothing -- not the heights, not the knives, not even the yakuza -- compare with kissing Heiwajima Shizuo. Shizuo is like a hurricane, a tsunami, an earthquake, a thousand natural disasters enough to level the whole of Tokyo contained into the span of a single pair of broad shoulders and a scowl shadowed under hair bleached into the pale yellow of caution tape, as if to give a warning as that offered in nature by poisonous snakes and wasps. But Izaya feels the threat the other contains like a lure, a temptation for something so deep-down in his psyche he can no more resist it than he can fight the insistence of the fate that has marked the whole of his body with Shizuo’s injuries, for Shizuo’s owning; and so he is here, now, with Shizuo’s body pressing close against his and Shizuo’s breathing panting heat past his parted lips and no more to hide the greatest secret he has ever kept than the thin of the shirt keeping his skin from Shizuo’s. Shizuo kisses Izaya’s mouth like he seeks to conquer it, as if Izaya is just another street sign to be dragged free of its moorings and bent to whatever shape Shizuo wishes him to take, and Izaya clings to the back of Shizuo’s vest like it’s a lifeline, and he strains for what rationality he can find with Shizuo’s hips pressing down against his own, and Shizuo’s fingers sliding through his hair, and Shizuo’s lips memorizing every curve of his mouth.

It takes Shizuo a while to attempt more. Izaya isn’t surprised that the other capitulated -- he thinks this outcome was decided almost as soon as Shizuo stepped in through the front door to shed his shoes alongside Izaya’s. But for a long while Shizuo contents himself with kissing, with bracing Izaya’s head between both palms and kissing with an intensity as if he means to draw them into satisfaction with nothing but the press of his tongue to Izaya’s own. Izaya isn’t willing to insist that he can’t -- his whole body is taut with the ache of want repressed for too many years, until every shift of Shizuo’s body against his feels like an overture -- but Shizuo doesn’t notice the strain thrumming through every part of Izaya’s body, or maybe just doesn’t recognize it as separate from his own, because after what feels like an eternity of Shizuo’s mouth crushing its weight against Izaya’s Shizuo tightens a hand against the other’s hair, and flexes his shoulders to a tell of determination, and lifts his hand to fall to Izaya’s hip with the clumsy speed of nervous intent.

Izaya drops his own grip at once. It’s almost not even conscious, for the speed with which he acts: one moment Shizuo’s fingers are touching at his waistband, and the next his grip is bruising his hold into the other’s arm. Izaya jerks away, breaking free from Shizuo’s mouth with a gasp, and when he speaks it’s to blurt “No touching,” with more desperation to the words than he intended.

Shizuo pulls back from Izaya’s mouth to open his eyes and blink shock down at the other. His face is flushed, his cheeks colored pink and his mouth stained red with the friction of Izaya’s against it. Izaya wants to bite blood against his lips, wants to let his grip go and reach for Shizuo’s hair and pull him down into a kiss hot enough to make him forget everything he ever knew about soulmates, to knock every thought of scars so far away they’ll be years in the returning. He tightens his fingers until he can feel his nails catching against the skin of Shizuo’s wrist.

“ _What?_ ” Shizuo says. He probably doesn’t mean the word to come out as a growl. Izaya can feel his cock twitch inside his jeans just at the sound of the other’s voice. “What do you _mean_ no touching?”

“Just what I said,” Izaya manages. His voice is marginally more level, when he fights to make it so. There’s nothing at all he can do about the heat trembling through his veins, half excitement and half fear and all, he thinks, such desperate arousal he can hardly breathe for it. “The clothes stay on.”

Shizuo’s breath hisses past his lips. “I thought you’re the one who was always offering to take me to bed whenever I wanted.”

“The offer still stands,” Izaya shoots back. “Shall we take this to the bedroom?” Shizuo’s teeth come together, his jaw flexes on tension; Izaya bares his teeth in what even charitably can’t be called a smile.

“That’s what I thought,” he says, and shoves hard enough to dislodge Shizuo’s hand from his hip. “The clothes stay on.”

Shizuo catches himself at the edge of the couch, his palm bracing hard against the support. His head ducks forward, his shoulders hunch up; Izaya can almost read the conflict in his thoughts without even seeing his face, just from the ripple of movement across his back as he fights with himself. Izaya watches the battle for a moment, watches temptation and judgment wage war against each other in the set of Shizuo’s shoulders and the hiss of his breathing; and then he lifts his free hand to the front of his pants and his fly pulled to straining tension.

“Still,” he says, as he sets his thumb against the button to slip it free of its hole. “That doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun.” Shizuo’s head jerks up, his eyes going wide with shock as he catches up to the meaning of Izaya’s words, and Izaya sets his fingers at the zipper of his pants and draws it down with as much flourish as he can manage. There’s not much he can do with the motion, after all, but it’s enough: Shizuo’s gaze flickers to follow the action of Izaya’s wrist, his attention reflexively tracking the movement in his periphery, and Izaya can hear the hiss of a breath the other takes as Izaya’s fly comes open over the dark of his underwear stretching tight across the strain of his erection.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, and his voice is so raw and low Izaya thinks for a moment he’s going to come right then, just for the purr of that tone against his spine. “You _can’t_ be serious.”

“Come on, Shizu-chan,” Izaya lilts. “Have you ever known me to lie?” That gets him a choked-off laugh, as he intended it to, and he drags a grin onto his lips as he hooks his thumb into the elastic of his underwear. “You’re free to go whenever you want.” Izaya lifts his hand from Shizuo’s shoulder, holding it palm-up as if in a sign to a nonexistent audience; Shizuo glances up at him for a moment, forehead creased and jaw set on the agony of indecision, but when Izaya drops his hand to pin his shirt in place over his stomach Shizuo’s attention follows it back to the invitation of that thumb still hooked under elastic.

“But if you want to touch something…” Izaya lifts his thumb, stretching the cloth up to offer a suggestion of shadow, the possibility of the unseen, before he draws down to slide the fabric free and bare the shape of his cock for Shizuo’s gaze. Shizuo makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, so high and desperate it sounds like a whimper, and Izaya pushes all the way down to catch the elastic under his balls and to lay himself out for Shizuo’s view before he lifts his hand to join the first in holding down the hem of his shirt. “I have at least one suggestion for you.”

There’s a moment of tension left hanging in the silence that follows Izaya’s words. Izaya can feel his heart racing in his chest, his pulse hammering over terror and hope and arousal and dread until he doesn’t know which is uppermost, doesn’t know which one is tremoring in his fingertips where he’s clinging to the edge of his shirt to pin it down to a curtain over the telltale marks at his chest and just over his hip. All it would take is a single irritated motion for Shizuo to see everything Izaya has spent so long hiding from him; all it will require is a breath for Shizuo’s patience to give way and send him storming out of the apartment and Izaya’s life entirely. But Shizuo’s shoulders are straining with want of his own, and Izaya can taste the smoke off Shizuo’s tongue hot as a brand against his lips, and when the tension breaks it’s with a shuddering exhale at Shizuo’s lips, a sigh like a groan for the resignation under it, and Shizuo’s shoulders sag even as he lifts his hand from the couch to reach down for Izaya instead.

Izaya jerks at the first touch of Shizuo’s fingers, his hips bucking up with some uncontrollable will of their own to urge his arousal up and against the resistance of the other’s hand. Izaya doesn’t know if Shizuo truly is as radiantly warm as he seems to be, or if it’s just his own awareness that is flushing every ghosting contact into a burning glow just for the knowledge of his soulmate’s fingers against him, of Shizuo’s touch laying itself to permanence across his body. Maybe Izaya wouldn’t be able to tell, if his eyes were shut, maybe Shizuo’s touch would be indistinguishable from any other’s; and then Shizuo’s grip slides in to brace against the shaft of Izaya’s cock, and in the shudder that runs through him Izaya is sure that he would know that fit anywhere, is sure that Shizuo’s palm was always made to press so perfectly against him. His body aches with the contact, heat coursing under his skin as if his whole existence is lighting up in answer to Shizuo’s touch against him, until for a moment Izaya isn’t sure he isn’t going to come just from the incandescent knowledge of how Shizuo’s hand feels bracing such a steady grip around him.

Shizuo moves immediately. He doesn’t wait for that first shudder of response to pass from Izaya’s body, doesn’t wait for a command or permission either one; he just moves, pulling up with such speed it’s more clumsy than elegant in the urging it makes to push Izaya to heat. Izaya’s thighs tighten, his arms strain against that hold he has on his shirt, but even when he moans over a “ _Shizu-chan_ ” Shizuo doesn’t look up at him and doesn’t ease the stroke of his hand. His hair is falling over his face, Izaya can’t see the expression he’s wearing; but then, Izaya’s own vision is blurring, his focus unravelling from itself to the too-deft persuasion of Shizuo’s awkward motion over him. He can hear his breathing clinging to his throat, can hear desperate, choking sounds tightening in his chest with every inhale he takes as arousal spikes too high too bear, as sensation surges fast enough to outstrip pleasure, but Shizuo just keeps moving, forcing Izaya towards a peak he’s not ready to reach yet as surely as if he’s dragging him there bodily. Izaya’s legs are trembling, one heel skidding against the floor in pursuit of unfound traction and the other quaking helplessly where Shizuo’s position is pinning it up against the back of the couch, and Shizuo keeps pulling, working friction into Izaya’s body even as he trembles with the too-much already surging through him.

“Shizu--” Izaya starts, his voice breaking halfway through as Shizuo’s grip pulls up sharply against the dark-swollen head of his cock. “Shizu-chan, I’m going…” His words slide out of his grip, skipping high over his tone to give the words the force of a warning even without the coherency of their meaning. “I’m going to come.”

Shizuo doesn’t answer. He doesn’t lift his gaze to Izaya’s face, doesn’t offer so much as a grunt of acknowledgment. He just leans in, ducking close to press his face into Izaya’s shoulder as if to block away sight and expression of the other’s pleasure as it breaks over him. Izaya struggles for a breath, hears the sound of it whine in his throat like a wordless plea, and as Shizuo’s hold urges up over him his orgasm shatters over him, convulsing through his body and spilling a long, speechless moan from his throat. His toes curl, his back arches, his cock throbs, and Izaya’s fists at the edge of his shirt hold the fabric down over his skin as Shizuo’s grip strokes him through the full, unflinching force of the white-out heat that shocks through his body.

Shizuo stays pressed to Izaya’s shoulder for a long moment afterward, while Izaya is still trembling and staring unseeing at the ceiling of his apartment over him. His thoughts are blessedly blank, absent of any of the fear or hope or want that so eclipsed him before; his release has swept them aside, all his distractions urged away like so much rubbish by the simple, unceasing stroke of Shizuo’s hand around him. Izaya wonders what sex would be like, how much more Shizuo could draw from him with lips and body and cock when he did so much with just one hand, but the question goes unanswered in the distraction of Shizuo freeing his grip so he can push himself up and away from Izaya’s shoulder. His face is hot, Izaya can see as he straightens, his lips flushed with kissing and his cheeks burning with the shadow of the blood suffusing them; his lashes are weighting so heavy over his gaze Izaya imagines he could read the other’s desire from a glance at his face, even without the evident proof of sight and sensation to show off the tented front of Shizuo’s slacks and the solid resistance that has been pressing tight against Izaya’s thigh. But Shizuo doesn’t reach to unfasten his belt buckle, doesn’t turn his attention to follow Izaya’s relief with his own; he just grips the back of the couch with a hand that Izaya can see shaking before it tightens hard enough to creak the frame and pushes himself to his feet, making it to upright even if his legs are as visibly unsteady as his hold.

“None for you, Shizu-chan?” Izaya asks, lilting the words to a purring taunt even though he can see the answer in the set of Shizuo’s jaw and the flex of his shoulders as he forces himself to upright. He lifts one arm from the hold he has at the hem of his shirt, angling it up over his head instead; when he turns his head he couples it with a tip of his knee to make an invitation of the line of his thigh inside his tight-fitting pants. “I owe you after that. You’re more than welcome to take your payment in kind.”

Shizuo shakes his head, the motion short and sharp with force. He doesn’t look down to meet Izaya’s dark-lashed stare, doesn’t glance at the spill of heat over the bottom inches of the other’s shirt or the lingering flush of Izaya’s cock still standing out half-hard from his undone pants; Izaya wonders if it’s more guilt for what they’ve done or self-preservation from what they might yet do that’s keeping Shizuo’s attention so studiously elsewhere. “No.” His jaw flexes, his throat works. “I’m going home.”

“I know,” Izaya says. It’s no more than he expected, with Shizuo’s refusal of his offer. He turns his head on the cushion to make a show of casting his gaze to the dark fabric visibly tenting over the strain of Shizuo’s erection. “Want the cold shower here before you go?”

Shizuo coughs a laugh that doesn’t touch his eyes. His hands curl at his sides, starting towards fists before his shoulders sag and his head ducks forward in surrender. He shakes his head. “No,” he says, and then he steps away, moving with clumsy haste as if he’s forcing himself to it. “See you, Izaya.”

“Yes,” Izaya calls after him, bracing his elbow at the couch so he can push himself up to look after Shizuo making for the door. “Until next time, Shizu-chan!” Shizuo looks back over his shoulder from where he’s stepping into his shoes. At the distance he’s at Izaya can see no more of his expression than the flat line of his mouth and the dark of his eyes, but Izaya bares his teeth into a smile anyway and lifts his hand to a taunting wave. Shizuo huffs a breath, his head ducking down to break their eye contact, but he lifts his own hand from his side, offering something that is at least the approximation of a farewell before he reaches for the door to drag it open and stride out of Izaya’s apartment.

Izaya stays where he is for long minutes after Shizuo has left, pushed up onto his elbow and clinging to the smile on his lips as he watches the door in case there’s the sound of returning footsteps or the thud of a knock demanding entry once more. It’s only after twice enough time has passed for Shizuo to make his way down to the front of the building that Izaya lets his smirk give way to a gasp to fill air-starved lungs and drops the support of his shaking arm to fall back to the couch where Shizuo left him. His legs are aching, his hands are weak; for a long moment all Izaya can do is lie on his back on the cushions, staring blankly up at the distant ceiling of his apartment. But even that simple familiarity is too much to bear, too much to take in with his ears ringing with the afterimage of Shizuo’s voice and his eyes burning with the heat that wracked the whole of his body, until finally Izaya draws his dangling leg up and turns himself sideways so he can curl in against the back of the couch, and shut out the distractions of the world, and give himself the time to retreat into the impossibilities of his very recent past.

No matter how he tightly he shuts his eyes, the memory of Shizuo’s touch is fire enough to scorch Izaya’s vision to white.


	16. Cold

Izaya stays on the couch for a long while. It’s difficult to think, hard even to collect his thoughts from the starshot scatter that has been made of his coherency and his composure at once; even after he’s drawn himself into some vague sense of the existence that he had a few hours hence and has begun to consider the possibility that he might still be Orihara Izaya, it’s not enough to bring his body under control. He’s still trembling even after long minutes lying still against the couch, his hands and legs and even the rhythm of his heart in his chest, all of him shaking with an intensity that he can’t so much as begin to rein in. Heat flickers over him like an open flame, racing through his veins and down the length of his spine as if with the force of an aftershock even with his orgasm long since spent and drying against the dark of his shirt, and it leaves ice in its wake, freezing Izaya until he doesn’t know if he’s shaking from the cold or the adrenaline, if it’s fear or hope uppermost in him.

Shizuo’s hands have stained his skin, marking the core of his being with the weight of the other’s fingerprints even if Shizuo himself doesn’t see it. Izaya wonders if he’s ever going to be able to find pleasure without Shizuo’s name attached to it, wonders if it would even be possible with anyone else. Would someone else’s touch leave him cold, perhaps, now that his blood has matched itself to the thud of Shizuo’s desire, now that he knows the feel of being undone by the hurricane of Shizuo’s want; or would his imagination smooth over the gap, could he come apart under someone else’s body so long as it’s Shizuo’s name spilling to a sob on his lips? Izaya doesn’t know, can’t guess, and he doesn’t think that particular curiosity will ever be satisfied, not now that he know how to crave Shizuo’s touch directly. He lies on the couch, trembling through waves of heat and chill and fear and arousal while he remembers the set of Shizuo’s jaw, the flex of his thigh, the grip of his fingers; and finally Izaya braces a hand at the cushion beneath him, and reaches to grab at the top edge of the frame, and drags himself to sit upright more by force than any actual strength in him.

The stairs are a struggle. It’s hard enough to stand, although Izaya’s strength by rights ought to still be his for the taking; but Izaya feels as if he gave over all his power into that one helpless spasm of pleasure, as if he’s inverted his existence to spill all his strength into Shizuo’s keeping and leave himself boneless and aching. He has to hold to the railing as he makes it up the stairs, has to set his eyes on the step in front of him and count dull numbers instead of facing the distance left to go, and even once he makes it to the top story he keeps close to the wall, hiding himself in the line of shadow alongside the floor as he makes his way down the hall to the door of his bedroom. He had daydreamed about drawing Shizuo up here, aware even as he prepared for it that it was a vanishing impossibility, but now he’s grateful for the ease it gives him in pushing the door open and stepping into the bright-lit clarity of the room.

The space is all but empty, of course -- Izaya doesn’t spend much time in this room -- but the sheets are pulled to neat folds over the bed, and the drawer of the table within reach of the mattress is cracked open into a suggestion to draw the eye to the shadows within. Izaya only glances at it -- he doesn’t need to wonder about the contents, not when he’s the one who placed them there -- but it’s still a relief to remember, to have the structure of the next hour so clearly prepared for him even if he’s here alone rather than with the partner he had hoped for. He pauses at the edge of the bed to strip his shirt up over his head, tugging the fabric free of his skin to finally lay bare the patterns of cross-hatched scars that Shizuo’s misadventures have carved into him and the dark, puckered mark wrought by his own critical mistake before turning to fall back onto the sheets without looking, landing hard enough that even the soft impact with the mattress gusts the breath from his lungs.

He reaches for the button of his pants to thumb it open over the zipper he didn’t bother to refasten, and when he pushes his clothes off his hips it’s with more attention to speed than to elegance. He’s going hard again, his cock swelling out from his hips while his balls still ache with the overwhelming force of his first orgasm; arousal is rising in him like the tide, pulled there by the impossible gravity of Shizuo’s influence felt even now in the other’s absence. Izaya shoves his pants down to his knees, far enough that he can kick them free of first one and then the other foot before twisting over onto his stomach so he can sprawl across the bed as he reaches up to pull one of his pillows free of the close-tucked sheets and push it down to the soft of his belly so it can take the weight of his hips. He hitches himself higher on the bed, spreading his knees wider to straddle the give of the pillow and brace himself as he reaches to drag open the bedside drawer, and by the time he has the bottle of lube within open and spilling over his shaking fingers he’s entirely hard again, his cock aching with desire and spilling precome into the slick of the pillowcase under his hips.

Izaya isn’t gentle with himself. He’s not much for patience even on his best days, when his fantasies run immediately towards being held down and taken with ruthless desperation; now, with his cock throbbing and his thighs aching on the second arousal he’s mustered in the last hour, he wants nothing so much as satisfaction of a caliber to match the strain in the small of his back and the heartbeat of want within him. He pushes one finger into himself all at once, pressing his face down into the sheets and moaning with the friction that is as much relief as heat, and he adds a second almost before he’s drawn the first out to stretch himself wide around the intrusion. He’s pushing too hard, he can feel the ache of it dragging inside him with every thrust of his fingers, but he doesn’t stop any more than he lifts his face from the muffle of the blankets beneath him. His breathing catches at the sheets, reflected back against itself to turn humid at his lips, and Izaya pants to fill his lungs and thrusts into himself with two fingers while he reaches out to drag blindly at the open drawer next to him for the solid weight of silicon within.

He hardly ever uses toys. His hand is enough, usually, the spread and slide of dexterous fingers more satisfying to the build of detailed fantasies than the rough force of clumsy resistance, and if he’s in the mood for more his touch works as well for that and serves better for most of his goals anyway. But he’s come once already, trembling through an orgasm that should have been enough to strip all the heat from him for days to come, and still he can feel desire like a tidal wave in his blood, racing in the beat of his heart and shaking in his fingers, and he needs more than what his quaking hands will be able to grant him. He lifts his head as he draws the dildo in over the sheets, shaking his hair back from his face so he can see what he’s doing as he braces an elbow at the mattress to push himself up before slipping slick fingers free of himself. He can feel the absence of pressure like an injury, a dull hurt within him in spite of his too-rough force in his preparation; the sensation urges him to haste as he braces his palm against the breadth of the toy and slicks wet over the cool of silicon formed to realism.

It’s too big, Izaya’s often thought, too thick and long for him to take even with the most careful preparation and heavy enough to leave him aching with the aftermath of its motion for full days after; now he wonders if it’s even a match for the heat that pressed so close between his thigh and Shizuo’s hips, downstairs on the couch. Shizuo’s at least as long, Izaya thinks, maybe broader even accounting for the effect of his clothing straining close over his desire; if Izaya shuts his eyes he can imagine it’s flushed skin instead of cool silicon his fingers are pressing over, imagines feeling the give of Shizuo’s cockhead working under the slide of his thumb as he strokes lubrication over the length before him. The thought burns in his cheeks and jerks in his cock, even pinned down to the pillow beneath him, and Izaya gives over his efforts in favor instead of guiding the wet-slicked dildo down between the span of his thighs. He digs his elbow in hard against the sheets under him and tips his head forward to fix his gaze on the edge of the blanket to steady himself before he sets the head against his entrance and pushes against himself.

It’s too big. Izaya can feel the strain aching up his spine, can feel his body tensing reflexive protest even before he’s won any traction at all. He’ll need to take longer to prepare himself, to ease his body into receptive softness enough to take the full breadth of the dildo braced in his grip; but his cock is throbbing, Izaya can feel his heartbeat thudding roughly through his length with every breath, and he can’t bear the thought of pulling away even for the purposes of winning surrender from his body. He tips himself farther forward against the bed, gritting his teeth and hissing over a breath as he presses, but still reflex wins out over desire, and the ache inside him goes unsatisfied. Izaya lets the strain go for a moment, breathing hard enough that he could hear the sob on his exhales if he let himself pay attention; and then he takes a breath, and he shuts his eyes, and he lets his imagination go.

His knees are too close. He can feel the strain in them, as if his knees want to come together to press against each other; he angles them wider, fitting them to the shape of imagined thighs, of the body his mind paints in the air over him, strong legs and broad shoulders and a mess of blond hair. Shizuo’s knees would force Izaya’s legs wider, would bear Izaya down against the bed as much by their tension as by the grip of hands Izaya images at his hips, the texture of Shizuo’s palm tight against him as thumbs brace solid at the dip of his back just over his ass. Shizuo’s fingers would dig in against his abdomen, one finger sliding to catch at the knife scar at Izaya’s stomach, and Izaya’s heart is racing, now, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth open around the rasp of his breathing as he imagines Shizuo leaning over him, hands locking Izaya in place against the slick-wet promise of his cock pressing to Izaya’s body. Those fingers would flex, the muscle in Shizuo’s arms would strain to pull Izaya back with inexorable force, and Izaya’s wrist shifts, his arm works, and his breath tears into a helpless moan as the dildo slides up and into him in time with the illusion of Shizuo’s cockhead sinking its heat into the grip of Izaya’s body.

Izaya can feel the pressure the whole way up his spine, even just from the first inch of length sliding into him. His body is aching, singing protest that trembles through his spread-out thighs and flexes strain into his cock against the pillows beneath him, but if he had listened to his body’s protests he would still be on the couch downstairs, and it’s not the reality of his present that has him now. Izaya’s not seeing the familiar dark of the sheets beneath him, isn’t feeling the cool of the lube-slick silicon straining his body open as his wrist flexes to press harder; it’s heat inside him, the unbearable radiance of Shizuo’s body working into him, demanding surrender as its due from the body that shares but one set of marks with it. Izaya imagines Shizuo’s grip tightening, hears the echoing groan of Shizuo’s breath rasping on desire in his throat, and when his arm flexes it’s to force the dildo another inch into himself as a match for the want-strained insistence under Shizuo’s voice in Izaya’s imagination. Izaya moans against the mattress, almost wailing over the sound as it breaks free of his chest, but his arm is working in answer to his fantasy rather than his present and his strength is greater than reflexive resistance. The toy slides into him, unfolding the space of his body while his mind recasts the pressure into Shizuo’s desire, turns the echo of his own breathing to the pant of want at Shizuo’s lips, invents the grip of strong hands at his hips and flexing thighs pinning hard against his own.

There would be nothing to stop him, Izaya thinks dizzily, with their skin uncovered to speak to that connection Izaya has hoarded to himself for so long. Shizuo’s desire, so long-dammed by his own insistence and Izaya’s teasing, finally given free rein must flood Izaya’s entire existence, must eclipse any meager restrictions of physical ability or flexibility. Izaya imagines Shizuo’s jaw gritted with pressure, imagines his face flushed to the same burn of desire it showed on the couch an hour hence; imagines that strain set free to spend itself on Izaya, to print Izaya as indelibly with its effect as his skin has been marked by Shizuo’s violence. Izaya is panting at the sheets, his free hand clutching desperate for a hold to steady himself as his hips rock, as his fingers push to urge the toy farther into himself, and his mind offers Shizuo hunching over him, gasping air as he works himself into Izaya, riding the strain of the other’s body around him towards the release he denied himself tonight. Izaya thinks of Shizuo inside him, taking him, _having_ him, feeling the tremor of Izaya’s own arousal flexing tension around every inch of his heat-swollen cock, and his hips jerk, his cock strains, and he spills onto the pillow under him as his voice cracks and shatters over a “ _Shizuo_ ” that strains itself into the outline of a sob.

Izaya’s orgasm convulses his body against the bed, cramping his legs and quivering in his shoulders and spending a weak spurt of come over the pillowcase, the most he can manage so soon after the pleasure Shizuo wrung from him on the couch; but it passes quickly, the pleasure so brief and so soon gone that he’s left struggling through the force of aftershocks without the buffer of pleasure to soften their blow. It’s almost a relief when they pass, the strain giving way to leave him shaking and spent over the bed; but there’s still the pressure within him, the toy cast back to the cold reality of too-much by the disintegration of his fantasy. Izaya has to brace himself at the bed before he can find the will to slide back and out of himself, hissing air past his teeth as he draws the seemingly endless length free of his body, and even once it’s gone the ache remains, a dull weight inside him from too-rough use enough to match the bruised-in throb of overblown pleasure that has settled itself low in his belly. Izaya drops the toy to the floor alongside the bed and draws his arm in to brace himself enough to push off the pillow at his hips, but even on his side he can feel the tremor of overuse through the entirety of his body, from the arch of his feet to the weight of emptiness inside him to the pace of his heart beating so fast he’s dizzily surprised he’s still conscious at all.

Izaya curls in against the tidy lines of his empty bed; after a moment he draws his knees up too, pulling them in towards his chest in the closest approximation of comfort he can find without much physical motion. But the ache inside him remains, deep in his belly and high in his chest, and even when he shuts his eyes to close out the distraction of the world the heat behind them is the most warmth he can find for the tremor of chill running under his scar-marked skin.


	17. Guilt

Shizuo takes the long way home.

It seems the best course of action. He’s made enough mistakes tonight, has already broken too many of his promises to himself in the span of no more than an hour; he doesn’t trust himself to cling to his conviction in the privacy of his own apartment and behind the barrier of a locked door. He can taste Izaya on his tongue, can hear the echo of Izaya’s breathing in his ears, can feel the heat of flushed skin layering itself under his own as if a match for the scars stamped across the whole of his body, and even the smoke of the cigarette he lights as soon as he’s free of the apartment building does nothing to override his memory. It’s too clear, too vivid, flickering through his thoughts every time he shuts his eyes, drawing another surge of heat to renew the slow-fading arousal that has so gripped him, until he paces right past the train station he ought to take back to the other side of the city in favor of walking the distance instead.

He can’t pull his thoughts free of their fixed point. Izaya has always been magnetic, has always drawn Shizuo’s thoughts as readily as the shine of his hair draws Shizuo’s gaze; now Shizuo’s imagination, always too ready to wander itself back to its favorite subject, is as pinned in place as if held down by the gravity of a black hole. Shizuo knows the flutter of Izaya’s lashes over the heat-haze of his brilliant eyes, knows the taste of a moan on Izaya’s tongue against his own, knows the curve of his spine and the heat of his cock and the feel of orgasm coursing to helpless pleasure through the other’s body, and he growls in the back of his throat and reaches to shove a hand roughly through his hair as if that has any chance of being enough to dislodge Izaya from his thoughts. It’s impossible, as futile now as breaking free of his hold has ever been, and the thud of want in Shizuo’s chest just makes control of his imagination the more impossible.

It was a mistake. Shizuo knows that, he can feel it aching down at the inside of his chest; because it’s not just want in his veins, not just the flare of desire so raw and anxious it’s all he can do to keep from turning on his heel to bolt back to Izaya’s apartment and take the invitation the other made explicit in the angle of his thighs and the curve of his smile. Shizuo _does_ want him, wants Izaya more than he thinks he has ever wanted anyone before; but there’s the sour taste of guilt on his tongue alongside the weight of nicotine, and he can feel his stomach going leaden with misery for every flicker of heat that electrifies his spine and flushes harder in his cock. He never intended things to go this far, never intended to topple headfirst into what he has always thought would be hardly short of outright betrayal of the person he is truly meant to be with, and now he’s stepped over the line, has given in to the temptation for an experience he can’t strip from his body any more than he can wrest Izaya free of his thoughts. He can no more undo kissing Izaya than he can pull the press of his fingerprints back and away from the give of the other’s skin; worse, he can’t make himself wish for such an impossibility, and not just for the futility of such a hope.

The acknowledgment doesn’t ease his guilt. Shizuo feels as if there are two halves of him: the part he’s carried his whole life, that spent all those years of a lonely childhood longing for the understanding and connection that would surely follow from the companionship of a soulmate, and the part that shattered away at the cut of a knife in high school and has been left to grow and take form of its own since then. It’s the second part that reached up to close its fingers on Izaya’s hair, that pulled to draw Izaya in against the span of Shizuo’s body; but the separation is a delusion, of course, when Shizuo can feel the ache of desire through every part of him as clearly as he can feel that guilt. His actions are his own, as much as any of his explosions of temper have ever been, and he has no choice but to own what he has and has not done as best he can from here. It’s true that he kissed Izaya -- all his own doing, that, however near Izaya’s parted lips may have drawn to tempt him -- true that he pulled Izaya down onto the couch, that he reached out to press his hand to Izaya’s bare skin. Shizuo’s the one who closed his fingers around the heat of Izaya’s arousal, and it was the flex of his wrist that drew Izaya into spasming pleasure beneath him; the fact that he ducked his head forward to keep from seeing the way incandescence looks on Izaya’s face was as much the utterly futile attempt of saving himself from that clarity of desire as much as any hope of deniability. There’s almost no point to his restraint now, not after he’s given up so much of it; but Shizuo can still refuse himself, even if he couldn’t refuse the loneliness of Izaya’s house or the part of Izaya’s lips or the heat of Izaya’s want, and with nothing stopping his departure but his own desire the pain of self-restraint seems the least he can give.

He doesn’t hurry his footing towards home. The impossible strain of desire is easing, if only a little, as the chill of the wind and the dark of the night blur over his too-vivid memories of Izaya clutching at him, Izaya kissing him, Izaya coming for him, and time is finally doing what self-control couldn’t achieve and stripping the heat of his arousal to let the weight of guilt run like ice through his body. It’s not a relief, exactly -- Shizuo walked away from the only kind of relief he could possibly find for himself when he left Izaya’s apartment, and he has no intention of turning back for it now -- but it’s an easing, even if the loss of tension brings the miserable weight of self-loathing with it. It gives Shizuo something else to think about, at least, and it’s not as if this is the first time he’s felt this. It’s not even the first time he’s felt it in relation to Izaya; every date they have gone on has come with its own consequence, and for Shizuo those have been paid in hunched shoulders and self-recrimination. This is nothing but more of the same, more of the inevitable conclusion that will always follow his inability to stay away from Izaya, and he can’t even muster the self-restraint to tell himself he’ll pull free again, after the last week of slow-drowning peace. He can still feel Izaya’s absence aching like a fresh-healed wound, the remembered hurt too vivid for him to even imagine lying to himself, and he knows even as his strides eat up the distance between Izaya’s home and his own that he cannot face the reality of abandoning the other to the cold silence of his apartment. Shizuo has spent long years hurting himself, by accident or intent, and he knows what damage he can bear at his own hand, if nothing else. It may not be a fair trade to give up his own peace of mind to protect the strange, brittle fragility of Izaya’s smile, of Izaya’s fingers, of Izaya’s laughter; but fairness has never had very much to do with Shizuo where Izaya is concerned, and this is no exception.

He’s spent years hoping for the impossibility of forgiveness, hoping that his soulmate will somehow be able to look past the violence Shizuo’s temper has printed on both their skins and find some measure of acceptance for the person Shizuo wishes himself to be, more than who he actually is. It’s not fair to ask for more, to stretch the necessity of that forgiveness farther still; but Shizuo’s fingers are burned with the heat of Izaya’s skin, his ears are ringing with the sound of Izaya’s breathing, and it’s too late, now, to undo what has already passed. He can’t imagine asking for forgiveness, after this; but then, it’s been years since he could make himself look forward to the impossibility of a happy ending for himself. Another measure of futility changes very little but his own sense of guilt, and that Shizuo is infinitely more familiar with than the face of his unknown soulmate.


	18. Choosing

They start meeting at Izaya’s apartment, after that.

It’s not as if Shizuo is truly surprised. He felt the pull in his chest when he stepped through the doorway at Izaya’s invitation, felt the hollow space of the other’s life begging to be filled with companionship of any kind, with just the presence of another human being to occupy the overlarge expanse of his apartment, and he knows he wouldn’t have been able to refuse an invitation to return, no matter how catastrophic his last visit. But that serves as a temptation of its own: because however many hours Shizuo laid awake haunted by the burden of his guilt, he feels the thud of desire humming through him in time with every beat of his heart, and he can no more refuse Izaya’s offer of what Shizuo himself craves in the very core of his being than he can let himself give in to the demands of his own satisfaction.

Izaya doesn’t seem to care. He always asks, to be sure, always makes the offer of reciprocation with a smirk and a flutter of his lashes that says he knows the answer before Shizuo gives it; but he never offers the plea that Shizuo thinks would break his last quaking resolve, never suggests the least indication of disappointment in the other’s refusal. It’s only reasonable, Shizuo thinks: however much tension Shizuo himself may be under, he is certain no one could conceivably crave more than what Shizuo is already offering as Izaya’s for the asking.

And Shizuo offers a lot. It’s true that he’s holding back his own satisfaction, restraining himself from stepping over the line of fitting his desire to the open heat of Izaya’s body and seeking out mutual release for them both; but they do everything else, as Shizuo’s resolve crumbles under Izaya’s pressure on every single other point. Touching they manage that first night, lips to mouth and fingers to heat-taut desire; Shizuo spends his second visit pinning Izaya’s hips back to a night-blackened window and sucking over his length until Izaya groans and spasms into pleasure that Shizuo can taste as heat all down the back of his throat alongside the bitter of his own guilty conscience. Shizuo touches, and tastes, and wants, taking everything Izaya has to give while refusing release for himself, and every time he shuts his eyes for the plea of pleasure in Izaya’s throat he can feel himself unravelling further, can feel the crack in his heart digging deeper to break him into those two matched halves.

Izaya was waiting for him, tonight. Sometimes he lingers in flirtation to begin their evenings; sometimes they stay so long that Shizuo begins to think he may be able to break free without paying the price that always comes, with Izaya, the cost of another fragment of his soul handed over to the heat of the other’s body and the demand of his curving smile. But Shizuo gives way, or Izaya does, and even the slowest nights end with Shizuo pressing Izaya against his front door and panting against the other’s neck as he jerks shuddering heat free of the other’s throat under the grip of his fingers and the press of his thigh. The conclusion is inevitable, Shizuo knows that before he ever leaves the shadows of his work or the comfort of his home, and tonight he found Izaya’s door unlocked when he knocked against the barrier. Izaya was on the couch already, sprawled heavy-limbed over the cushions with his pants undone and his arm angled up over his face, and he had barely paused in stroking over himself long enough to reach for the bottle of lube set on the table next to him and toss it to Shizuo before resuming the pace of his movement. His face is flushed, his cheeks colored with heat and his lips red and wet from the set of his teeth, and Shizuo had barely paused to lock the door and shed his shoes before coming forward as he slicked his fingers to wet to claim the space between Izaya’s spread knees for the support of his own.

Izaya never takes his clothes off. It’s a strange detail for him to hold to, when he’s so quick to offer his body for the use Shizuo refuses to make of it; Shizuo can’t imagine that he has any kind of self-consciousness, not when his shirts and pants hold so tightly to the span of his chest and the length of his legs, not when he’s willing to leave his front door unlocked while he jerks himself off rather than getting up to let Shizuo in upon the other’s arrival. But it’s not as if Shizuo can complain, not when he spends every night he comes over working Izaya into pleasure and refusing any kind of reciprocation in the moment or after, and so he leaves the boundary untouched, lets Izaya go on pulling his shirts down almost over the waistband of his pants and never offering more than the few inches of leeway his undone fly provides. At least his unconcern about keeping his clothes clean was made clear even that first night; Shizuo has no need to hesitate in reaching to brace his hand at Izaya’s hip over the weight of his pants before reaching down to work slippery fingers in under the strain of Izaya’s cock and the drawn-up tight of his balls to urge towards the tension of his entrance. Izaya angles his head back against the cushions, his throat straining onto a line of tension that Shizuo can feel echoed in the pull across his shoulders, and Shizuo shoves ungently to force his palm between Izaya’s thighs so he can gain the traction to urge a finger up and into the other’s body.

Izaya moans with the press of Shizuo’s touch. This is familiar too: he always hisses with the first contact of Shizuo’s body against his, sound spilling from his chest and past his lips as if against his will. Shizuo doesn’t know why he would bother restraining himself, not when he makes such an unapologetic show of his arousal most of the time, but the strain on the heat would be enough to swell Shizuo to instant hardness even if his cock weren’t already pressing taut against the front of his uniform slacks. As it is Shizuo feels heat throb through him, feels his length twitch with the ache of desire that sparks up his spine, and his own breath spills to a hiss as he thrusts up with more force than he ought to use to sink his touch into Izaya’s body. Izaya’s back arches, his legs trembling with force enough that Shizuo flinches into a moment of guilt, but when he opens his mouth the moan that spills free is entirely unrestrained and unequivocal in its pleasure. Shizuo grimaces, as much for the desire rushing through him in answer as for the unembarrassed heat on Izaya’s tone, and when he moves the action bears some of his discomfort with it, as if he might be able to spend the pain of his own unresolved desire in the slick stroke of his touch within Izaya before him.

It’s uncanny, how easy it is. Even that first night it took almost nothing for Shizuo to draw Izaya into orgasm: the brace of his hand, a few quick strokes of his wrist, and Izaya was moaning underneath him, his whole body quivering with the force of the heat that rippled through him. He seems to gain endurance each time, holding off a little further from the nigh-immediate release he offered that first night; but it comes with no decrease in intensity, as near as Shizuo can tell. It seems rather that Izaya peaks as quickly, drawn to skim the very cusp of orgasm as fast as Shizuo’s hands or lips press against him, and then that he holds himself there, as precarious as maintaining balance at a cliff-edge, until his strength gives way to drop him toppling into the convulsions of pleasure Shizuo brings to him. Shizuo wishes he had never touched Izaya in the first place, wishes he had never lifted his head to press a jealous kiss to the other’s mouth in place of the smoke winding its way into Izaya’s lungs; he wishes he never had to stop, wishes he could spend the whole of his life working over Izaya in every way experience and imagination can suggest until they both drown in an excess of pleasure. He fantasizes about it, sometimes: a world where he leaves his soulmate unfound, where he urges his presence so far into Izaya that there is no space left for whatever partner the curse of fate has marked out for the other. To be free to choose, to spend the coin of his desire where he wishes as easily as Izaya does: the thought is a heady one, as intoxicating as dangerously sweet wine, and Shizuo flinches from it whenever it forms itself from the pant of Izaya’s breathing and the painful ache of his own unsated desire. It’s a dreadful thought, to doom two strangers to loneliness in exchange for temporary release, for the simple relief of physical pleasure; and yet Shizuo finds selfishness growing in him with every message to summon him across the city, finds a cruelty in uncaring he didn’t know he had, and when he has Izaya beneath his hands and quaking around his fingers it’s hard to remember how to feel anything at all except the hunger in him.

Shizuo doesn’t watch Izaya’s face. Even now, with his fingers gripping what must be bruises over Izaya’s pants and his knuckles dragging friction within the give of the other’s body, he fixes his gaze on the span of tight-pulled black across Izaya’s chest and absents himself as far as he can manage from the reality of the moment. The rhythm is everything, the stroke of his fingers and the flex of his arm enough to hold his attention; he doesn’t need to think about the knot in his belly or the strain in his breathing, doesn’t need to watch the light flicker like a candleflame in the shadows of Izaya’s hair or the heatstruck dark of his eyes. It’s already too much to have the shudder of rising pleasure telegraphed so clearly to Shizuo from the tremor of Izaya’s thighs against his wrist and the involuntary clenching of the other’s body around the stroke of his fingers; if he watches the dawn of orgasm spill light over Izaya’s face Shizuo is sure his heart will shatter to dust right there under the joint effect of fate and need too much for even his inhuman strength to bear. So he stares at the dark of the other’s shirt, pins his whole attention to the silk-soft texture of the fabric and the shift of Izaya’s desperate breathing flexing and pulling beneath it, and when Izaya’s hold at the edge of his shirt pulls the cloth taut Shizuo sets his jaw and shuts his eyes entirely to black out his vision as he thrusts up and feels Izaya start to come around his fingers.

It’s not enough. It’s never enough, really, was never even from the first; if just shutting his eyes was enough to protect Shizuo’s heart there would have been nothing to fear right from the beginning of all this. But Shizuo can feel Izaya under his hands, can track the drag of the other’s pleasure in the quake of his thighs and the helpless force of his hips bucking up against Shizuo’s grip; he can hear Izaya’s voice breaking out of all his mocking teasing, the blatant sincerity of “ _Shizu-chan_ ” made into a prayer by the depth of heat to which his voice topples. Shizuo can smell the heat of Izaya’s body, can feel the radiance of it in the air, can taste the salt of sweat and pleasure and arousal at his tongue when he draws breath; and he feels himself falling ever deeper, his heart giving way to Izaya’s keeping as surely as Izaya himself gives way to Shizuo’s touch. Shizuo might be holding back the surrender of physical pleasure, might be keeping the incandescence of orgasm strictly separate from his interludes with Izaya, but he wonders with every passing day, with every dragging breath, if he’ll have anything left of himself but a shell by the time Izaya is done with him.

He has no choice. His choice was handed over long ago, on the courtyard of a familiar high school and with the flicker of white teeth in springtime sunlight, a fate that has always held Shizuo as tightly as any of his scars have ever done. So he capitulates, and he gives, and he offers everything he has still unmarked for Izaya’s keeping, and he wonders if someday the heat of Izaya’s skin might not be enough to melt his own back to the unmarked smooth of a possibility that he can offer where he chooses.


	19. Persuade

It’s not enough.

It should be. Izaya knows that, with what rationality is still left to him over those spans of time that cross between one interlude with Shizuo and the next, the periods that feel increasingly like drowning slowly between gasps of clear air. Shizuo is intense, as overwhelming now as he has ever been; and now that intensity lacks even the buffer of the distance of a restaurant table or the rising steam of a cup of tea between them. Izaya knows Shizuo’s touch, now, feels it hum in his bones with every shudder he offers and tastes Shizuo’s breathing on his tongue with every helpless moan he spills to the air around him, and it’s too much, he knows it is, he can feel the strain in his body with every touch until he wouldn’t be surprised to find his skin bruised and bloody just from the heat of Shizuo’s fingertips working against and over and within him. And still, even then, even now, there’s nothing but want, raw and desperate and utterly unfulfilled, as if every orgasm Izaya spills over himself or his shirt or the cushions of his couch is just another debt of pleasure, as if he can feel Shizuo’s dissatisfaction building within him even as he spends himself over and over and over again, paying back a cost incurred in another currency as the only thing he can think to do.

At least Shizuo touches him. Izaya doesn’t attempt satisfying himself, not after that first night when his orgasm hit him like a blow, as if he was gouging bloody marks into his skin to shape Shizuo’s name in the scars that would follow and leave Shizuo with no doubt at all as to the identity of his longed-for soulmate. Izaya’s stomach drops when he thinks of seeking pleasure himself, as if he’s anticipatingthe chill of misery that will inevitably follow from the loneliness of his bed, and he doesn’t make the attempt again. He’s not sure he could bear a repeat of that first night, isn’t sure his body could stand the frostbite-chill that swept in to take the place of his arousal, once spent; so he gives over his own touch, and offers his pleasure entirely to Shizuo’s keeping.

Shizuo claims it, too. He never touches himself, never lets Izaya more than grind against him; but after that first smoke-heavy kiss he gives Izaya everything else, capitulating to the other’s suggestions as fast as Izaya makes them. He offers kisses to the pout of Izaya’s lips, gives up the heat of his tongue over the heat of Izaya’s cock, urges one and two and sometimes three fingers up into Izaya’s body until Izaya comes so hard he forgets why he’s clinging to the edge of his shirt, forgets who he isn’t to Shizuo, forgets everything but the spasm of pleasure that lingers in him so long as Shizuo’s touch stays at his skin. It fades with Shizuo’s departure, vanishing from Izaya’s trembling body with the weight of the door shutting at the other’s heels; but it’s the best Izaya can hope for, and he’s rapidly becoming too much of an addict to the heat of Shizuo against him to hope for restraint even in his most delusional imaginings. So Izaya has his pleasure, and he has Shizuo’s strength, the flex of his arm and the shift of his wrist and the part of his lips, all his for a claiming as easy as the chime of a phone call, the hum of a text message; and every day that passes strips him closer to bone, as he feels the hollowing absence of that which he wants most badly of all.

Izaya wants Shizuo. He knows that, has known that for long years of his life; sometimes he feels like he’s known it the whole of his existence, as if even his earliest forays into fantasy were matching themselves to the shape of the man waiting farther along the trajectory of his life, the match fate has picked out as best for him. There was a time when Izaya felt that as a burden, as if his appreciation for the world were narrowed and blindered by his soul’s insistence upon a single match; now, with his desire like a living thing trying to drag itself free of his body to reach out and lay claim to Shizuo’s, he’s glad he only has the one subject with which to concern himself. He thinks he would be torn apart by conflicting desires, when the single pressing attention to one is like gravity trying to crush his bones to dust, and that even with his own pleasure sought and satisfied in every way his suggestion and Shizuo’s willingness can seek out. Izaya comes for Shizuo, on his couch and against his window and helplessly over the grip of the other’s hand and into the heat of his mouth, as immediately as if Shizuo’s command were enough to drag it from him, and he feels his heart clench tighter as if in a fist for the pleasure Shizuo won’t give him, that relief of Shizuo’s own orgasm cresting and breaking over Izaya himself.

It’s not that he doesn’t ask. Izaya offers every time, sometimes sincere and sometimes mocking and sometimes with just the angle of his knees and the pressure of his fingers; and Shizuo resists, holding himself back with a strength that Izaya is shocked by even in Shizuo, who has proven himself so inhuman in so many other aspects. Izaya turns his voice to pleading, shapes his moans to the outline of Shizuo’s name, lets the tremor of his legs thrum through Shizuo secondhand, and Shizuo remains a wall, as untouched as if the arousal Izaya can see straining against the front of his dark slacks is someone else’s, as if the desire Izaya knows he is feeling is that of a stranger. His clothes stay on, sometimes rumpled by Izaya’s hands but never loosened by more than a dragging pull at the back of his shirt, and with every moaning orgasm Izaya gives up to the demand of Shizuo over him he feels himself drained further, Shizuo claiming all his pleasure without offering any of his own.

Izaya tries to touch, sometimes. He’s sure Shizuo must be teetering at the edge of giving in; he would stay away, otherwise, he hardly has any other reason for putting himself through what must be a torture of masochistic levels of self-restraint. It must be a constant battle with his own desire; surely the press of a convincing hand would be enough to break him, to urge open the fly of those damned slacks and draw free the heat-heavy weight of his cock. Izaya doesn’t care what happens after that, if Shizuo comes across his chest or down his throat or in answer to Izaya’s own convulsive pleasure around the resistance of Shizuo thrusting into him; it’s Shizuo’s relief he’s craving, with such a deep-down instinct that he can’t find his way to anything more clear than the raw want. He hardly has to think of it: his fingers find their way to Shizuo’s hips, his thumbs draw against the line of the other’s waistband, his hips buck up in suggestion. Izaya always tries, reaching fast or carefully or with the distraction of seduction behind his hold; and Shizuo always stops him, catching Izaya’s wrist in a hold like steel to draw it away. That’s where it ends, for the most part -- Izaya usually has the good sense to keep his hands occupied with his shirt, or Shizuo’s hair, or something other than the one thing he’s forbidden -- but as desperation builds his sallies have grown more aggressive, until he ends as he has now, with both his hands pinned together one atop the other and one of Shizuo’s clasping tight against his wrists to hold them over his head as the other works a hand up between Izaya’s thighs to urge the other open around his fingers.

“Shizu--” Izaya starts, only for his voice to be struck from his throat by the answering force of Shizuo’s fingers driving into him to force attention free from his mind. Izaya’s words break off to a groan, one far enough at the back of his throat that it sounds like a stranger’s as it pulls free, and his back arches against the floor where they tumbled after Izaya drew Shizuo in against him from the doorway. “ _Ah_. I’m...let me go, Shizu-chan.”

“No,” Shizuo says, without so much as lifting his head to meet Izaya’s gaze. His chin is ducked down, his gaze fixed on the motion of the hand he has pressing between the other’s legs; Izaya would be radiant with the focus Shizuo is turning on the strain of his cock if he weren’t absolutely sure that it’s the flex of his arm the other is paying attention to as he works into Izaya with as much determined focus as if he’s facing down an unpleasant but necessary task at his job. The thought is bitter enough to chill Izaya’s skin and undo the strain in his thighs to drop his legs slack to the floor; then Shizuo’s fingers urge up again, his thumb presses down hard just against the side of Izaya’s balls to brace the other steady, and Izaya shudders with response he can’t hope to hold back as Shizuo keeps working over him. “You can’t keep your hands to yourself.”

“You’re not giving me a chance,” Izaya protests, although he’s sure the strength of his words is dramatically undermined by the rasp of his breathing at the back of his throat. “I can’t... _un_...can’t jerk myself off like this.”

Shizuo snorts. “You don’t need to,” he says with absolute certainty. “You’ve come like this before.”

“When I had your leg between my thighs,” Izaya shoots back. “You don’t seriously expect me to come just from your fingers in my ass, do you, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo’s shoulder lifts under the crisp white of his shirt. “I dunno.” He lifts his chin fractionally; from under the shadow of his hair the brown of his eyes looks black, until Izaya can’t see how dark his eyes are blown for the weight obscuring them. “It’s worth a try.”

“Is--” and Shizuo’s fingers jolt up, hard enough to tip Izaya back against the floor, and Izaya’s shoulders strain with the same heat that tightens all the muscles in his legs at once. “ _Ah_.”

“It is.” Shizuo’s voice is low, rumbling over close to the same irritation he showed before, but there’s something warmer under it now, too, tension twisting into amusement in spite of himself. When Izaya blinks his lashes free of the haze of blinding heat he finds Shizuo still watching him, his gaze cast up through his hair but pinned to Izaya’s face with more attention than Izaya can usually manage to wring from him. “Don’t you want to try?”

“I want--” Izaya starts; and then self-preservation does what rationality could not, and takes the reasonable step of closing off his throat with the sound unvoiced. Shizuo is watching him, his eyes that endless, unreadable dark and his clothes still covering him from close-buttoned cuffs to the black tie at his collar, but there’s something of tension against his lips, the faintest suggestion of what Izaya might call a smile, if he were to see it on someone else. It’s hardly there at all, hardly something to stifle the words that Izaya has always had so ready to call to his bidding, but the shape of it tenses at the edge of the other’s lip, where a tiny scar creases a break in the shape of his mouth and the tan of his skin. Izaya knows that mark, remembers shading over it this morning as he leaned in close towards his deliberately-structured reflection in the mirror to hide the sign of connection so small it’s unlikely anyone would ever see it. For a breath of time he can feel pressure against the whole of his chest, desire spiking to the height of pain with the want to lift his mouth and press his lips close to that connection, to urge near enough that even Shizuo’s well-learned disbelief gives way to recognition. His arms work, his wrists strain, and when he drags a breath it pulls so hard in his chest Izaya feels it like it’s someone else’s, as if the rasp of need in his ears is spilling from a stranger’s lips rather than his own. “Shizu-chan, I want…”

Shizuo’s mouth softens, even his held-back smile dissolving in the intensity of his focus. “What?” he asks. The stroke of his fingers eases, the press of his touch pulling away from the cusp of too-much he’s been urging Izaya to; for a moment the strain within Izaya feels almost like a caress, like Shizuo is more interested in feeling the give of the other’s body than in forcing sensation into him. “What do you want?”

“I want,” and Izaya presses his lips tight together before he can finish that sentence, before his tongue can turn traitor and undo the desperate silence he’s held on himself. _You_ , he wants to say, wants to plead with every persuasion he has in him. _I want you, Shizuo, I want you to take me and choose me and love me, it’s me, it’s_ me _, I want you I want you I love--_

“More,” Izaya gasps, forcing the strain in his chest to sound. “Don’t stop, Shizu-chan.” The words are tense, nearly a shout instead of the plea they ought to be, but they do what Izaya needs them to do in walling off the weight of Shizuo’s gaze and hardening the line of his mouth. Shizuo grimaces, his lips shifting as if on some pain, and when he ducks his head it’s to hide his expression behind his hair as he begins to stroke again, harder and faster even than he did before. Izaya’s back arches, his breathing rushes out of him, and for the first moment of heat it’s all he can do just to keep his hips to the floor, to keep from bucking up to urge himself onto the press of Shizuo’s touch. Shizuo is moving fast, so rough the pace he’s setting verges on violence itself, and still Izaya wants to press into it, wants to wrap his legs around Shizuo’s hips and arch himself up and let himself shatter for Shizuo’s touch, for Shizuo’s gaze, for Shizuo’s having. But his shirt is loose over his hips, the hem sliding with each movement of Shizuo’s fingers, and Izaya can feel the tight-puckered line of the scar at his abdomen as if the wound is fresh-made, a scab ready to tear open with an uncareful motion. His heart is racing, his thoughts spinning, his arms shaking as he tries to strain himself free of Shizuo’s impossible hold; and still he can’t duck his head, can’t shut his eyes, can’t look at anything other than Shizuo’s tousled hair as the rest of the world begins to dissolve out-of-focus around him.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya manages, struggling for purchase on the words as his heel digs in at Shizuo’s calf, as his leg flexes to try to tip himself sideways in some kind of disguise for the pale of the skin left dangerously bare along the line of his waistband. “Shizu-chan, I need--my hands, please.”

“You don’t,” Shizuo growls without looking up. “You’re fine.”

“I’m not,” Izaya gasps, and it’s true, he can feel his body flexing as if his shoulderblades are reaching to meet each other, can feel his breathing clinging syrup-sticky in his throat. His vision is blurring, his thoughts are hazy; his legs are shaking, both of them, his wrists aching with the raw weight of bruises under Shizuo’s hold. “I’m not, I’m going--Shizu-chan, I’m…” and then, as Shizuo’s fingers demand surrender, Izaya’s tension climbs to its highest point, teetering at the apex of his own strength for a breathless moment. Izaya stares at Shizuo over him, his mouth parted and voice stripped; and then he sucks in an inhale, and Shizuo ducks his head forward to hide his gaze, and Izaya convulses into pleasure that cants his body sharply to the side against the press of his heel to Shizuo’s calf. His hips twist, his back straining to arch him to the side as if he’s trying to break free of the grip of pleasure and Shizuo, the two immediate and indistinguishable in the flame they spill through his veins, but Shizuo’s touch is pressing within him and his orgasm is sweeping over him, and all Izaya has left to do is shake and shudder and whimper through the force of pleasure that cascades over him. His legs quake, his arms flex, and he clenches hard around Shizuo’s fingers, his body seizing involuntarily tighter at the other as his cock spills wet over his shirt and the floor beneath him. There’s a long span of heat, of sensation too much for any part of Izaya’s existence to bear in peace, until by the time it ceases and drains away from him he finds himself sprawled over the floor before Shizuo, one foot digging in hard against the other’s leg and the other knee drawn up to weight at Shizuo’s thigh inside his uniform slacks. It’s an awkward angle, Izaya can feel the strain of it even without the tremor of heat still shuddering through him, but it does what it’s meant to in casting the shadow of his shirt down over the bare skin at his stomach to hide any glimpse there might be of the texture of the scar sitting so close over the angle of his hipbone.

Shizuo doesn’t comment on Izaya’s position. He just huffs a breath, still with his head ducked down to hide his features, and lets Izaya’s wrists go as part of the same movement that rocks him back over his heels so he can steady himself in easing his fingers back and free of the other’s body. He doesn’t even glance at Izaya’s hands, as if the possibility of the other reaching for him is as utterly spent as Izaya’s own desire; the thought burns frustration down Izaya’s spine even as he lifts his hands from the angle they’re making at the floor. He wants to reach back out, to shove himself up on an elbow and reach out to press his fingers to Shizuo’s fly, to lay claim to the heat of the other’s desire and make it his own before Shizuo has a chance to resist. But his arms are shaking too badly to support his weight, and as the heat fades from his body he can feel the tension of fear start instead, and when he moves his hands it’s to reach for the hem of his shirt instead, to catch and pull the shadow down over himself to hide the giveaway of that mark mirrored so precisely across the skin Shizuo’s uniform keeps covered for him.

“There,” Shizuo says, his voice still rough as he braces his palm at the floor and shoves himself to his feet at once. Izaya’s foot slips free as Shizuo moves away, the tension of his legs giving way to slack weight to sprawl him over the floor, and over him Shizuo tosses his head to cast his hair back from his face as he reaches to push his fingers roughly through it. “Satisfied now?”

“Of course,” Izaya purrs. “You have such natural talent, Shizu-chan, how could you possibly leave me anything but thoroughly sated?” He finds a smirk for his lips as Shizuo tips his head to glare down at him, grinning as he pushes himself upright on that shaking arm and lifts his chin to look up at Shizuo through his lashes. “You can stay, you know. Bask in the afterglow even if you insist on maintaining your own purity.” He tips his head to the side and lets his smile sharpen to a razor blade at his lips. “It’s not like you’re letting yourself jerk off, right?”

“Shut up,” Shizuo growls. “That’s none of your business.”

Izaya lifts a shoulder into the most elegant shrug he can muster. “True,” he lies, and leans back against the support of his hand to make a picture of languid comfort. “I’m getting what I want, I don’t care what you do or don’t do in your own home.” Shizuo snorts and turns away towards the door again, apparently disregarding Izaya’s invitation as mockery instead of the sincerity it was. Izaya watches Shizuo reach for the door handle, feels the sweat against his skin cooling to ice, and as the latch gives way:

“Shizuo,” he blurts, so fast and anxious that he can hear the desperation even in his own ears. Shizuo pauses, his hand on the door as he glances back over his shoulder, and Izaya scrapes through the last of his self-control to find the dregs of a smile for his lips.

“We should meet at your place sometime,” he says, before he can think better of the suggestion. “It’s not fair for you to be trudging all the way across the city just to satisfy me, after all.” He reaches to catch at his shin and draw his legs in to cross in front of him, bracing both hands at his ankles as he smiles up at Shizuo before him. “Maybe I’ll drop by the next time I feel like a little fun.”

Shizuo’s lashes dip, his forehead tenses; but what he says is, “I won’t hold my breath,” before he turns to pull open the door. Izaya lifts his hand to wave goodbye but Shizuo doesn’t turn around to watch him; he just steps out of the door, turning sharply to retreat down the hallway before Izaya can find voice from the tension in his chest. Izaya lets his hand drop as the door shuts and lets the smile he’s been holding slip off his lips to soften his mouth on consideration as he stares unseeing at the shut door Shizuo has just vanished through.

He’s so lost in his thoughts that for once he doesn’t notice when he starts to shiver.


	20. Conspicuous

Izaya has never had a plan go so well.

He’s used to schemes. Manipulation is a skill, one he has spent long years honing to a razor’s edge; he thinks he’s capable of drawing almost anyone into choosing the path he wants for them, given time and enough misplaced trust. But Shizuo has always been the exception, as he is the exception in so much else. That same fear of exposure that kept Izaya so distant for the whole of high school and the years that followed has prevented him from gaining an understanding of Shizuo himself until their reunion, and in the weeks of interaction that have followed he has been too overwhelmed by his own reaction to get a clear sense of how Shizuo makes his decisions, much less gain the edge of being able to affect those same. Izaya knows the set of Shizuo’s shoulders, the color of his eyes, the texture of his fingerprints; but the logic of the thoughts that flicker behind the other’s expressions remains as unintelligible to his dizzy thoughts as if they were yet new-met strangers. Izaya lacks any personal grasp on Shizuo, doesn’t have the traction he needs to make a focused foray against the other’s weak points, and that means he has to fall back to the basics upon arriving at the front door of Shizuo’s apartment.

That doesn’t mean he’s weaponless, of course. Izaya knows the way Shizuo looks at him, with an overt hunger in his gaze for all that he thinks Izaya isn’t looking, thinks he’s managing to restrain himself. Shizuo has superhuman self-control, or maybe he truly does feel their connection with less of the crushing force that same becomes in Izaya’s body and mind, but even Shizuo must have limits, and Izaya has every intention of overriding those. Weeks of active seduction have failed him, thus far, the arch of his back and the moan in his throat have proven insufficient to persuade Shizuo to step over the last trivial limit the other has imposed on himself, and so Izaya tracks down the details of Shizuo’s address, and lays claim to that weapon that served him so well in his first foray, and he paints his mouth to a flush of heat and his eyes to the dark of invitation and he takes himself across town to rap a demand against Shizuo’s door.

Shizuo’s not expecting him. Izaya didn’t give him the chance to brace himself, didn’t give him the option of refusal; he makes use instead of everything he knows about the other’s work schedule and well-defined habits, and arrives at Shizuo’s apartment complex an hour after the end of the other’s work, just when he should be thinking about dinner, or about Izaya himself. The complex is quiet, most of the windows darkened by sleep or absence, depending on the preferences of the occupants within, but Izaya’s attention is focused on the one at the end of the building, a room away from the somewhat larger and more expensive corner apartments, and the light in that window is glowing bright as a beacon to draw him closer. He shifts his hold on the neck of the bottle in his hand, tugs at the edge of his shirt to pull it a little tighter over his chest and shoulders, and when he comes forward to round the corner and make his way to the door it’s with an elegance to his steps that he can feel like liquid grace through the whole of his body.

There’s no sound from the other side of the door as Izaya draws up to it, although the illumination bleeding around the frame speaks to the inhabitant within. Izaya lingers for a moment, waiting to see if he can pick out any indication of Shizuo’s existence, any glimpse into the life that he has only known secondhand, thus far; but if Shizuo is moving he’s doing so silently, and there’s not so much as a shift in the light to give him away. Izaya huffs a breath of disappointment and settles himself a little better at the doorway; then he reaches out with his free hand to tap his knuckles gently against the door before him.

He can hear Shizuo’s approach. The apartment walls are thin and the other’s footsteps are heavy; and more than that Izaya imagines he can feel the magnetism that always lingers just under his skin humming with the other’s approach, as if it’s his presence and not his knock that is pulling Shizuo inexorably towards him. His heart skids faster in his chest, fluttering against the cage of his ribs as if straining to break free of his body, and then the door comes open all at once, swinging inward to reveal Shizuo in the frame. He has his phone in his hand and is scowling at the screen as he pulls the door open rather than looking up at the visitor waiting on his doorstep; his hair is tousled out-of-keeping around his features, his shirtsleeves pushed up off his wrists to rumple around his elbows instead. He looks disheveled, comfortable in his home and easing out of the restraint of work and into the relaxation of the evening, and Izaya has never before felt a sight like a mortal blow.

“Shizu-chan,” he lilts, spilling the words from his lips like alcohol, and Shizuo’s head jerks up at once, his frown giving way immediately to wide-eyed shock instead. His hand drops, his phone slipping in some danger of falling, but his attention isn’t on the weight in his hand; that much Izaya can see with perfect clarity just from the flicker of Shizuo’s lashes, as the other’s gaze slides along the shape of his body to track the weight of his shirt, the fit of his pants, the angle of his legs. Shizuo’s focus draws down the whole of Izaya’s body, mapping the shape of the other for a moment of utterly unrestrained appreciation, and Izaya lets his smile spread wide over his lips to be waiting in a flash of brilliant white by the time Shizuo’s stunned gaze returns to his features. “Surprised?”

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, sounding as shocked as he looks. He blinks hard, struggling for focus he fails to claim. “What are you doing here?” He lifts the phone in his hand without looking at the screen. “I haven’t heard from you all day.”

“I was out shopping,” Izaya tells him. “And buying.” He lifts his hand from his side to gesture with the bottle into the space between the two of them. “Think I could buy myself an invitation in exchange for a cup of sake?”

Shizuo’s gaze drops to the bottle and over the label without any indication of recognition, though he snorts a laugh all the same. “You don’t need to,” he says, and steps back out of the doorway to make space for Izaya to come in.

“Aww,” Izaya purrs, and lowers the bottle to his side as he comes forward into the glow of Shizuo’s entryway. “Am I always welcome in your home, Shizu-chan?”

“I think you’d come in with or without an invitation,” Shizuo clarifies, but he doesn’t sound really frustrated, and his gaze is still lingering against the dark of Izaya’s shirt like he’s tracing the shape of the other’s body right through the fabric. “You should have told me you were coming over.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Izaya tells him, keeping his head down as he slips his shoes free and sets the bottle down so he can slide his coat off his shoulders as well. Shizuo’s attention follows that too -- Izaya can see the motion of the other’s focus out of the corner of his eyes -- but Izaya’s sleeves are overlong so he can catch them at his fingers and keep his shirt in place as he sheds the weight of his fur-lined coat and catches it to drape against the coatrack alongside Shizuo’s door. It’s only then that he bends to collect the bottle again and turns to smile back at Shizuo behind him. “Are you surprised, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo huffs like this question isn’t worth answering and turns away to retreat back towards the interior of the apartment. Izaya follows, setting his feet with deliberate care in Shizuo’s wake and holding to the smirk of amusement at his lips as he takes stock of all the details of Shizuo’s life around them, from the few dishes set out to dry alongside the sink to the narrow bookshelf at the corner of the hallway and the shadowy space of what must be a bedroom behind a door left ajar. Shizuo moves past the bedroom and the kitchen too, coming forward to the brightly lit space that serves as a living room where he was clearly occupied upon Izaya’s arrival. He drops to sit along the edge of the table in the middle of the space before reaching out to draw the open volume of manga before him in closer so he can mark his place.

“You can sit down if you want,” he says without looking up.

Izaya hums in the back of his throat and takes a pair of careful steps forward. “I will,” he says, and swings his arm out so he can set the bottle down with careless haste at the edge of the table. It’s misaligned, the center of balance tipped too far out so it wobbles and begins to fall; it’s only Shizuo dropping his manga and diving to catch at the weight that saves it from toppling to the floor. Izaya smiles and steps wide of Shizuo’s lean to return back the way they came. “In a minute.”

“Where are you going?” Shizuo asks, shoving the bottle back towards the center of the table as he twists to glare over his shoulder.

“I’m getting a glass,” Izaya calls back. “No need to be impatient, Shizu-chan, we have the whole night ahead of us.” The kitchen is small and easy enough to orient himself within, but he doesn’t even bother to pull open one of the cabinets over the sink; he just lays claim to the glass rinsed and left to dry at the counter before turning on his heel to return to the living room. “I promise it’ll taste just as good in five minutes.”

Shizuo frowns at the cup Izaya sets against the table before dropping to sit at the corner closest to the other. “I have more than one glass, you know.”

“Mm,” Izaya hums. “We don’t need more than the one.” He flickers a grin at Shizuo when the other looks sideways to frown at him and reaches to push the bottle across the table. “Care to do the honors?” Shizuo goes on looking at Izaya for a moment, fixing him with the flattest look Izaya thinks he’s ever seen, but Izaya doesn’t let his smirk go and eventually it’s Shizuo who gives way first, heaving a sigh as he turns to reach out for the bottle before them. Izaya wonders for a moment if the other’s grip will shatter the glass just for the force of it, but when Shizuo pulls it’s to draw the cork free without any visible struggle at all. Izaya reaches for the cup to hold it out at an angle towards Shizuo and Shizuo pours an inch of liquid into it before setting the bottle back down on the table.

“Get us started,” Izaya purrs, and holds the cup out to Shizuo. “Bottoms up, Shizu-chan.”

He’s half-expecting Shizuo to balk, to frown or growl or just refuse outright. But Shizuo just reaches out to claim the glass, his fingers pressing close to Izaya’s as he draws it away, and he brings it to his mouth as quickly, barely pausing to sniff at the liquid before he tips his head back to pour it down his throat. Izaya watches him swallow, the motion smooth and uninterrupted by the bite of the alcohol, before Shizuo straightens and brings the cup down to clink against the table. He pushes it towards Izaya with force enough that it slides across the surface; Izaya lifts a hand to catch it against his palm before it slips over the edge of the table.

“Fill me up,” he says, drawling the words into innuendo by tone alone. Shizuo rolls his eyes with more expression than heat, but he reaches for the bottle all the same and that’s really all Izaya needed him to do. He takes longer over his own drink, swirling it against the inside of the cup and sipping it slow while Shizuo sits at the corner of the table and tries to pretend he’s not staring.

“Ahh,” Izaya sighs, pulling the sound to warmth in his throat as he draws the glass back from his lips and makes a show of holding it up to the light. “This is good, isn’t it?” He cuts his gaze at Shizuo through the dark of his lashes and grins as he lifts the cup to his mouth again for another press of damp to his lips. “Aren’t you grateful to my generosity, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo lifts his shoulders into a shrug without straightening from the hunch he’s taking over the edge of the table. “It’s fine.”

Izaya draws his lips into a pout. “How cruel,” he protests, and sips again. “Do you really mean to say you don’t appreciate my host gift?”

“It was fine,” Shizuo says again, with a little more force on the words this time. “I didn’t really notice.”

“That’s because you drank it too fast,” Izaya says at once. “You have to savor it.” He brings the cup to his lips again and makes a show of swallowing, his head angled back to let his hair fall away from his face. Shizuo’s gaze slides from his lips to the line of his neck with ease enough Izaya is sure it’s an unconscious motion more than a deliberate one. Izaya smiles against the edge of the glass as he draws it away. “Let the heat linger on your tongue.”

Shizuo shifts against the floor as if he’s uncomfortable with the languid sprawl of his position. “I would if you had brought over another glass,” he growls.

Izaya bares his teeth in a flicker of a smile. “Oh, Shizu-chan,” he says. “That’s all the fun of it.” He brings the cup to his lips to pour the last of it into his mouth, but for all the flourish of the movement he doesn’t swallow. He holds it instead, feeling the alcohol burning the back of his throat and flaring like fire on his tongue as he sets the cup down with a _click_ and lifts his hand to gesture Shizuo in instead.

Shizuo huffs a hard exhale. “Are you serious,” he says, but Izaya can’t answer and Shizuo doesn’t wait for a reply anyway. He reaches out to brace a hand against the table instead, rocking in against the support of his arm with irritable haste, and Izaya smiles and lifts a hand to brace against the back of Shizuo’s head as the other comes in towards him. The weight of Shizuo’s mouth is rough, bearing bruising force behind it as his lips crush against Izaya’s, but Izaya just opens his mouth to share the heat of the alcohol burning over his tongue with Shizuo. Shizuo makes a sound in the back of his throat that might be protest, or that passes for such in the first moment, but when he lifts his hand it’s to brace against the back of Izaya’s neck with force enough to angle the other’s head back and up for the press of Shizuo’s tongue sliding past his lips. Izaya opens his mouth wider, giving over the shape of his lips to the demand of Shizuo’s tongue, and Shizuo licks farther in, against the heat at his lips and the roof of his mouth and towards the tension at the back of his throat. For a moment Izaya is held there, tongue burning and heart pounding and the taste of Shizuo filling every corner of his mouth; then Shizuo draws back, breaking them apart before he loosens his hold on Izaya’s head to let the other free as he rocks back to his side of the table.

“There,” he says, sounding gratifyingly unfocused. “I tried it.”

Izaya shakes his head, rejecting the idea even before he presses his lips together to swallow himself back to coherency. “No,” he says, and reaches out for the bottle at the table before he’s turned his head to look. “That hardly counts.” He pours another splash into the empty cup, larger than Shizuo’s first but smaller than the one he just lingered over, before setting the bottle back down and lifting the cup. “You need another taste.” And he tips his head back to pour the sake into his own mouth once more.

“Fuck,” Shizuo growls. “You could just give me the cup” but he’s reaching out again, surging forward onto a knee as he leans in over Izaya, and Izaya parts his lips immediately to let Shizuo drink off the curve of his tongue. It’s messier, this time, with more liquid spilling between them as Shizuo lays claim to what Izaya offered him, but Izaya doesn’t care, and from the intent with which Shizuo licks into the shadows of his mouth he’s certain Shizuo doesn’t either. They only break apart for a moment, this time, and that for Izaya to reach for the bottle and press it to his lips directly; he’s barely taken a swallow for himself before Shizuo is grabbing at his jaw and forcibly turning his head up for the other’s claiming. Izaya lets the bottle drop back to the table to teeter itself to stability before he lifts both hands to Shizuo’s hair to wind his fingers to fists in the pale locks and rocking forward and up to straddle Shizuo’s thighs and claim the support of the other’s body for himself.

It’s a better position than he usually gets. Shizuo claims the upper hand in most of their interactions, pinning Izaya to the door or a table or the couch within the first few moments of their lips meeting, and however much Izaya may wish for control himself he can’t ever clear his mind enough to actually struggle for such when he has Shizuo’s thigh between his legs and Shizuo’s hand pushing under the waistband of his pants. But Izaya’s taken the lead now, aided by the burn of the alcohol glowing heady in his throat and dizzy in his thoughts, and when he comes forward it’s to settle himself on Shizuo’s lap and pin the other between his knees and what restraint his weight can provide. Shizuo clutches at Izaya over him, a hand pressing low against the curve of his spine and another digging bruises at the back of his neck, and Izaya arches forward, pressing to Shizuo’s chest and fisting at Shizuo’s hair and kissing his way as far into the other’s mouth as he can reach while the effect of the alcohol blurs the lines between restraint and desire into a single foggy haze.

It’s Izaya who starts it. He has Shizuo between his knees, has Shizuo’s mouth open and wanting beneath his own; the only thing left is the ache of desire in his belly and the strain of arousal pulling at the front of his pants. He wants to delay, wants to postpone the possibility of rejection until the alcohol has done as much as it may to undo Shizuo’s usual self-control; but in the end it’s Shizuo’s touch sliding against his spine by an inch that does it, more than any conscious decision on Izaya’s part. The weight at his shirt shifts, dipping down over the waistband of his jeans to press towards the curve of his ass, and in the first rush of heat Izaya is rocking forward, his thighs flexing to bring him close against Shizuo before him. It’s too overt, he’s sure even as he moves; but Shizuo’s not the only one feeling the effects of the alcohol, and in the moment it’s difficult for Izaya to recall why he should hold still in the first place, much less act on that awareness. His body shifts, his whole weight urging up against Shizuo before him; and Shizuo groans against Izaya’s mouth, his throat straining with the heat, and his hand pulls against Izaya’s hips to urge him closer. Izaya can feel Shizuo arch up against him, can feel the heat of the other’s arousal press firm and certain against his own, and when his breath spills from him it’s into the shape of a whimper that turns to fire on his tongue.

Neither of them manages control, after that. It’s impossible for Izaya to restrain himself, with his thighs aching where they’re spread wide around Shizuo’s hips and his cock throbbing in time with his heartbeat where he’s pressing tight against Shizuo’s own arousal, and whatever restraint Shizuo once called his own is gone, stripped away by the familiar setting or the effect of alcohol or just too-much strain against a worn-thin barrier. Izaya tips forward, and Shizuo jolts up, and when Shizuo’s hand tightens it’s to pull Izaya down against him, to urge them closer together with every clumsy motion he takes. There’s no intention to their movement, nothing of deliberation to the work of their bodies, and Izaya thinks nothing has ever been so graceful, as if the same force that paints their skin with the other’s wounds is aligning them the better for the less thought they offer, the less resistance given by their conscious minds. Izaya’s gasping over Shizuo’s mouth, Shizuo is panting over Izaya’s lips, and between them their clothes are dragging to a friction so keen Izaya thinks he could find his way to orgasm with nothing but the seam of his pants and the heat of Shizuo’s patently obvious desire urging him to it. Their bodies move in sync, shifting nearer to fit together with such grace Izaya feels certain it must be clear even to Shizuo, must make their fated connection as obvious as if Izaya had stripped his shirt up and over his head to lay all the scarred-in proof bare for the other’s consideration. But Shizuo doesn’t speak to it, doesn’t seem to notice at all, beyond inherent appreciation, because when he finally pulls back from Izaya’s mouth to gasp for air it’s with near-pain audible on the sound.

“ _God_ ,” he blurts, and ducks his head in against Izaya’s shoulder to gasp hard at the front of the other’s shirt while his arm slides around to clutch at Izaya’s back, to drag the other in closer to him with unthinking force. “I want you so _bad_ , Izaya.”

Izaya doesn’t need to hear the words. He’s known as much, has seen it in Shizuo’s gaze and felt it in his grip; it’s been clear in every flush across the other’s cheeks, in every deliberate pull he makes away from Izaya’s fingers or hip or thigh just to keep his own arousal separate from Izaya’s own. The admission shouldn’t be a surprise, shouldn’t be a shock; but still Izaya’s fingers fist into Shizuo’s hair, and his whole body goes taut with the tremor of helpless reaction that hits him at those words in Shizuo’s voice, at the surrender they suggest even as they are.

“You can have me,” Izaya says, and there’s no seduction on his voice, nothing but overt sincerity, but Shizuo still groans against him and bucks up into the space between his angled-open thighs. Izaya fists his hand into Shizuo’s hair and pulls against the other’s head as he ducks to press his lips to Shizuo’s ear, to gasp his breathing to audibility for the other’s hearing. “Right now. Right here. Just _take_ me, Shizu-chan, I want you to, I want _you_.”

Shizuo moans a sound like agony to Izaya’s shoulder. “ _Izaya_.”

“Take me,” Izaya says, the words falling into the space of a chant at his lips. His hips come forward, his body arches in against Shizuo’s; and still Shizuo doesn’t push him away, doesn’t resist the overt suggestion Izaya is making of the rock of his hips and the flex of his thighs. “Pour some lube over your cock and push me over the table and you can have me tonight. I can come for your fingers, I’d come for your cock, Shizu-chan.” Shizuo’s panting at Izaya’s shirtfront, his fingers clenching and dragging at the back of Izaya’s shoulderblade even over the thin of the other’s shirt, and Izaya’s pushing closer, grinding himself down onto Shizuo’s lap as if he might be able to fuck himself onto the other’s arousal right through their clothes if he tries hard enough. “Imagine me coming around you, Shizu-chan, screaming your name while you fucked me through my orgasm, into another, until I can’t remember anything but the shape of your name on my lips.” Izaya’s thighs tighten, his hips grind as close as he can press; his breathing twists itself to a whine in his throat, his whole body aching on the dull throb of too-much arousal and too-little stimulation. “Just _fuck_ me, Shizu-chan, please, _please_ , I--”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shizuo growls, and then Izaya is moving, his whole center of balance veering wildly before he has a chance to realize what’s happening. He clutches at Shizuo’s hair, grabbing to save himself from a fall with what must be painful force, but Shizuo has an arm around his back to steady them together and it’s Shizuo moving after all, surging to his feet without bothering to give Izaya a chance to climb off him. Izaya’s arms tighten around Shizuo’s neck, his back arches to press him closer, but Shizuo has an arm under his thighs and one across his back and Izaya doesn’t think he’d actually be able to break free even if he were actively attempting such. He tips in instead of away, winding himself closer to Shizuo as much to keep himself from falling as out of any understanding, and Shizuo keeps moving, striding across the narrow span of his living room and to the hallway leading towards the front door. He moves fast, crossing the distance before Izaya has a chance to parse where they’re going, and when he turns it’s to kick against the door left ajar and sweep forward into the dark of what must be his bedroom. Izaya’s arms tighten, his legs flex, and then Shizuo is leaning forward to drop them both to the bed, catching his knee at the mattress before letting go to topple Izaya down over the sheets. His mouth follows close after, coming in to crush a kiss against Izaya’s mouth enough to steal any thought of coherency, and Izaya is left trembling and breathless with heat even as Shizuo draws up and away to free himself of Izaya’s hold. He gets to his feet again, standing with the same forceful certainty he showed in the living room; it’s only when he turns aside that instinct wins out over heat and forces Izaya up onto an elbow as he gasps over a ragged breath.

“Wait,” he blurts, reaching out in spite of himself for Shizuo’s retreating back. “Shizu-chan?”

“I’m turning on the light,” Shizuo snaps, and immediately suits actions to words. Izaya flinches from the illumination, lifting his arm to shadow over his face, but Shizuo just turns to look back at him from where he’s standing by the doorway. His eyes are dark, his forehead creased as if with pain, but he meets Izaya’s gaze fully, and the set of his mouth is speaking to a determination as great as any Izaya has ever seen from him. “I want to at least see what I’m giving in to.” Izaya’s voice dies in his throat, his lips part on soundless heat, but Shizuo isn’t waiting for an answer before returning from the doorway to rejoin him on the bed. His hand comes out to brace at Izaya’s head, his knee sets hard into the mattress between Izaya’s open legs, and when he ducks in for the demand of a kiss Izaya capitulates to let himself be borne back to the sheets of Shizuo’s bed without protest. The bed is soft enough to make his landing gentle, at least, but Shizuo follows so fast that Izaya finds himself pinned into place as soon as he’s landed, not so much breathless as overwhelmed by the immediacy of Shizuo not just over but against him, pressing in hard to his body as if to make up for all those nights of enforced distance via contact now. Shizuo’s elbow braces over Izaya’s shoulder, his hand drops to clutch at Izaya’s hip, and when Izaya rocks his knee up to urge against the front of Shizuo’s slacks he’s met with a groan of heat at his mouth instead of the resistance he would normally find waiting for him.

Izaya doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t know how far Shizuo’s patience will extend, doesn’t know how long he’ll have before rationality makes its return; even Shizuo’s apparent commitment to the present isn’t something he is willing to bet on, not after all the time it’s taken him to get to this point. So he reaches down instead of up, forcing a hand into the nonexistent space between their hips while he clutches at Shizuo’s hair to drag the other’s mouth down to his and offer the all-in distraction of his tongue licking into Shizuo’s mouth while his fingers fumble open the front of the other’s slacks. The fabric falls open as if it were waiting to be asked to surrender, unfolding for the demand of Izaya’s fingers almost on contact, and when Izaya drags at the waistband it’s to pull at Shizuo’s boxers too and drag them down and free of the other’s hips as the most efficient method of finally laying him bare. Shizuo groans at Izaya’s mouth, giving weak voice to the heat that comes with the friction of the other’s rough use, but Izaya doesn’t care: Shizuo’s pants are open and sliding down, and his hand is pressing between them, and his fingers are dragging over the hottest skin he’s ever felt in his life. Shizuo makes a low sound in the back of his throat, something dragged raw on need, and when his hips buck forward his cock presses flush to Izaya’s palm to thrust in for friction. Izaya whimpers with the heat as much as the breadth, and his fingers tighten to seek out a hold against the other even as Shizuo rocks against his hand.

“Shizu-chan,” he says, except it’s a plea, his voice is breaking and his heart is pounding and he’s never wanted anything so badly as he wants to arch his hips up and spread his thighs to urge the heat of Shizuo’s arousal against the give of his body, to drive up and fill everything in him with the throb of the heat under his fingertips. “Please, _please_.”

“I know,” Shizuo groans, with more heat than protest on his voice. His hand is dragging at Izaya’s hip, his grip struggling for traction against the other’s clothes; his head is ducked down, his gaze fixed at the effort of his fingers as he strives to unfold the barrier of the other’s clothes. “I’m going to, Izaya, I just need…”

Izaya doesn’t realize, at first, that Shizuo’s sentence has trailed off unfinished. He assumes distraction, assumes inattention to match his own, some measure of the heat that has so eclipsed his thoughts that it’s all but impossible even to hold to the shape of words in his head. His fingers are close against Shizuo’s cock, palming the length of it since he can’t manage to grip the whole in his hand, and he’s moving with enough force that he doesn’t notice Shizuo’s fingers cease their motion, doesn’t realize the touch against his hip has gone still for a long moment. It’s only when his cock offers up an ache of insistence that he realizes Shizuo has failed to make any headway, that his pants are still just as tightly fixed around his hips as ever, and that Shizuo is just leaning over him, still as if he has forgotten what he’s doing, or as if he’s suddenly remembered with whom he’s doing it. The thought sends a chill down Izaya’s spine and tenses his thighs on panic; it’s that that forces him into mockery, that draws his voice to a teasing lilt in his throat as he blinks himself into focus on Shizuo above him.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, edge enough on the question to make it a warning. “Don’t you remember how to get my pants off? If you’re that distracted we could switch places, I can fuck myself on your cock as well as…” and then the tumble of his own words trails off, as Shizuo lifts his gaze to meet Izaya’s with something behind his eyes that Izaya has never seen there before. Shizuo’s mouth is still damp, his cheeks are still flushed with as much desire as the heat of his cock at Izaya’s palm, but his eyes are as wide as if with horror, as if with the force of some epiphany that has overwritten the whole of the world he has always taken for granted.

“Izaya,” Shizuo grates, the heat of his voice turned over from desire to shock, and his thumb slides by an inch, drawing over the give of Izaya’s bare skin. Izaya can feel the texture of it, can feel the press of Shizuo’s touch working over smooth-healed skin; and then he realizes, and his gaze drops down with a speed that would be enough to give him away all on its own. There’s the dark of his shirt, rumpled over his chest and caught against the waistband of his pants on one side; there’s Shizuo’s hand weighting close against him, his undone shirtsleeve rolled up to leave the tan of his forearm bare to view. And against Izaya’s hip, where Shizuo’s fingers are bracing to steadiness: the old knife scar, bared by the careless lift of a dark hem and pinned in place under the other’s touch.

Izaya’s gaze jerks back to Shizuo’s face, as if maybe by looking away he can undo Shizuo’s own revelation, as if maybe he can claim a lie fast enough to unravel the awareness breaking over the other’s thoughts. But Shizuo’s eyes are still fixed on him, still wide and dark as if he’s drinking in every giveaway of Izaya’s breathing, as if he’s reading every scar on the other’s skin from that one point of his hand pressing to Izaya’s hip, and Izaya’s chest seizes on a terror like he has never known before.

“I have to go,” he says, blurting the words like a demand, and he lifts his hand to shove hard against Shizuo’s chest and knock the other away. It would never work, usually; it speaks to Shizuo’s shock as much as Izaya’s frantic desperation that the other loses his balance enough to fall sideways towards the wall alongside the bed. Izaya doesn’t wait for Shizuo to land; he’s wrenching himself sideways, all but throwing himself away from the cage of Shizuo’s arms and the press of Shizuo’s touch to topple out of bed and onto the floor. He lands hard against his hip, taking the full weight of his body in bruising force over the joint, but he doesn’t pause to so much as hiss with the pain of it; he’s turning instead, twisting to make for the door as rapidly as his feet can carry him.

“Izaya,” Shizuo’s voice calls from behind him. “Izaya, come _back_.” There’s a _thud_ of sound, Shizuo tumbling himself out of bed in pursuit, but he’s slowed by his undone clothes and Izaya has adrenaline coursing through him like electricity to overbear every nerve in his body into a frenzy of motion. He shoves his feet into his shoes, seizes his jacket and pulls hard enough that he nearly brings the coatrack down atop him where he stands. The door is locked, the latch won’t give way when he rattles at the handle; for a moment Izaya is caught in distraction as he struggles to parse the missing step to get the door open.

“Izaya!” Shizuo again, stumbling out of the bedroom and into the hallway; Izaya’s heart is racing as if it’s death itself calling his name instead of the man he has craved with every fiber of his being since he knew how to want someone. “Stop, _Izaya!_ ” The deadbolt turns over, the handle twists open: and Izaya is gone, bolting through the half-open door and slamming it behind him before he sprints out into the night, desperate to lose himself in the shadows before Shizuo catches a glimpse of him. His shoes skid at the pavement, his bruised hip twinges and aches protest to send him stumbling and almost falling, but Izaya keeps moving, running even as his lungs spasm with terror and his heart races itself towards some mortal finish in his chest.

It’s only the strength of his own legs, now, that can keep him from Shizuo.


	21. Recognize

By the time Shizuo gets the door of his apartment open again, Izaya is gone.

Shizuo thinks about that moment a great deal, in the days and weeks that follow. If he had been faster, if he had reacted sooner; maybe if his pants were still fastened, if he didn’t have to struggle through the unnecessary delay of pulling them back into place around his hips before he could throw open the door and attempt pursuit. He should have known, he thinks in the quiet hours of the night, when he’s smoking cigarettes instead of sleeping, watching the smoke rise towards his ceiling and imagining he can taste cinnamon in the bitter at the back of his tongue. It should have been instinct to tighten his hold and keep Izaya here, with him, rather than letting him slip away again like so much smoke through his fingers. But whatever Shizuo can see he should have done, however clear his path is in the crisp vision of retrospect: Izaya is gone, vanished from Shizuo’s life as if he was never there at all, and all Shizuo has left is the pattern of scars over his skin to stand as proof that that other half of his life so much as exists.

He should have known. It seems so clear, now, with the epiphany broken over him like sunlight bursting free from behind a cloudbank. The allure Izaya seems to bear in every shift of his body, the way his smile tears through Shizuo like a blow, the smell of his hair lingering in the air and the irresistible ache of his voice down Shizuo’s spine: it’s all obvious, as soon as Shizuo let himself look for it, so clearly the sign of some greater connection it seems absurd that he never thought to wonder, before. But Shizuo never noticed the marks on Izaya’s face, or Izaya went out of his way to hide them; the same way he must have hidden the rest of it, with an intention Shizuo can’t understand no matter how long he thinks of it. Shizuo has been speaking of his soulmate all this time, has been casting himself towards the conclusion fate held in store for him without knowing he was speaking to exactly that goal all along; and Izaya had laughed, and teased, and danced them both away from the least suspicion of their connection.

Izaya must have realized. That’s the first thing Shizuo grasps, later that same night while he’s sitting at the edge of his bed staring at his hands and smelling the heat of Izaya’s skin still lingering in the air like an afterimage enough to summon the other back to him. He must have known: Shizuo makes no effort to hide his scars, and whatever Izaya does to cover his he couldn’t miss the reflection of those familiar marks in Shizuo’s face. He knew during all their interludes, while he was dragging his shirt down to hide the giveaway mark at his hip from Shizuo’s notice; he knew when they met at Russia Sushi, when he came through the door after years of silence to all but throw himself into Shizuo’s arms. He knew before that, even, Shizuo realizes when he’s standing before the mirror, cataloging the scars across his body with the fresh eyes of understanding: he scrawled a line across his own chest on their first meeting with the edge of a knife that tore blood from Shizuo’s body and certainty into his own. He has spent years knowing, has known almost from the first moment they set eyes on each other; and he has said nothing, has kept this to himself, has done everything in his power to keep Shizuo from finding out. The idea is infuriating enough to curl Shizuo’s hands to fists of anger he can’t spend on anything around him without destroying it and can’t turn on its cause, vanished from Shizuo’s life as if he were never there at all.

Shizuo spends much of the first week angry. The betrayal is sharpest: all Izaya’s smiles start to look like mockery, in retrospect, with the knowledge of this unspoken secret finally made clear to Shizuo’s apparently ridiculously slow brain. Izaya must have been laughing at him behind his back, must have been endlessly entertained every time the subject of soulmates came up, every time Shizuo refused any of his offers for the sake of doing right by some stranger he believed to be elsewhere. Every profession of attachment, every declaration of dedication: they must have rung hollow with absurdity in the ears of the man who knew himself to be exactly that, unrecognized and unappreciated. Even the betrayal that Shizuo has been so haunted by ever since that first smoke-laden kiss; Izaya must have laughed to himself every time the door shut behind Shizuo, satisfied in his own pleasure while seeing Shizuo pointlessly deny himself his. There’s a cruelty to it, a vicious pleasure that Shizuo can’t parse even with the proof laid out clear in all his recollections, until he can’t imagine how someone so foreign to anything he understands could possibly be the best person for him out of all the multitudes in the world.

And yet: late at night, when memory is holding Shizuo’s rest hostage, all he can do is fill his room with smoke enough to call back the memory of Izaya’s lips parting in a plea, Izaya’s voice breaking open over the sound of Shizuo’s name. There was no feigning in his desire, no lie in the arch of his back or the strain in his throat or the tremor in his legs; Shizuo felt it, Shizuo saw it, Shizuo knows the truth of Izaya’s arousal as surely as he knows the sound of his own heartbeat. He doesn’t understand why Izaya wouldn’t tell him, why Izaya would keep this secret locked away in the quiet of his own mind instead of claiming Shizuo as his, but he knows beyond any doubt how deep the other’s desire runs, knows now why he has always felt the thought of Izaya as an ache in him, like the absence of something vital lost too long ago to even be recognized when placed before him. How many times had Izaya brought up the subject of Shizuo’s soulmate, how many times had he dismissed the idea as unimportant; how many times had Shizuo rejected him to his face, casting aside the connection that has been there all this time in expectation of something else, something better, some _one_ else, as if there has ever been any name but Izaya’s written in the beat of his heart and kindling the heat in his veins. How little did Izaya think Shizuo wanted him, that he could ignore the ache of magnetism that has urged them towards each other for all the years they have spent apart and together? How desperate did he become, to push for the seduction that must have ended in this reveal, that couldn’t have resulted in anything but this conclusion? It’s times like that that Shizuo finds his cigarette burnt to ash, forgotten in his outstretched hand, and the fingers of his other hand up under his shirt, working over the long-since healed knife scar laid there, and he wonders -- he worries -- what Izaya is doing now.

It’s impossible to tell. Since that meeting at Russia Sushi -- less chance, now, Shizuo thinks, than it had seemed at the time -- Shizuo has had Izaya everywhere, in his thoughts and at his fingertips and in his city, trailing that sweet-spicy of his hair and breath and body everywhere he goes as if leaving a path for Shizuo to follow to the person he knows, now, he was always meant to catch. But Izaya is gone now, evaporated as if he has simply vanished from existence; there’s no trace of him in the city, no murmur of him on the streets. Shinra hasn’t heard from him in months, when Shizuo asks; Simon hasn’t caught so much as a glimpse of a dark coat in all the afternoons he spends at the street corner in front of Russia Sushi. Shizuo goes to Izaya’s apartment, the first night with so much anger in him that he presses his finger bloody against the unresponsive bell at the side of the other’s door, and then later, after a week has passed to cool rage to aching desperation; but there’s no response, and when Shizuo knocks at one of the adjourning apartments the girl there says she hasn’t heard any sign of the resident next door for long days. Izaya doesn’t respond to texts, no matter which number Shizuo tries, and calls just find an automated voice declaring a disconnected number with emotionless clarity. Shizuo is left with nothing, no explanation and no understanding and no Izaya, and as the days drag long and silent and empty it’s that last that aches in him, crushing tight against his chest as if to burst his heart and leave Izaya as free as he always claimed he wanted to be.

The only connection Shizuo retains is that he has always had: the map printed on his skin, the path that has never led him astray even when he thought himself hopelessly lost even at his final destination. There’s the knife scar at his hip, proof enough of the same recklessness that Shizuo has seen more than enough evidence of in the intervening time; but there’s nothing else, try though Shizuo might to memorize every scar and track every mark on his skin. He checks every morning, craning his neck in the mirror to look for the texture of a stab wound or a gunshot mark while his heart races doubletime on terror; but his skin remains as familiar as it has ever been, unblemished by any but those marks he placed there himself. It’s hardly a relief -- there are more ways to suffer than those that leave visible wounds, and Shizuo’s imagination is proving all too adept at generating long lists of possibilities -- but at least he can tell himself Izaya isn’t bleeding out on a faraway street corner, and as long as they’re both alive Shizuo still has a chance to reclaim that connection he has always craved, that he disregarded when he had it out of his own blindness.

The want doesn’t ease. That’s not much of a surprise, at least; Shizuo still remembers with painful clarity how long those years after high school dragged, how fresh the pain was every time he so much as thought of the face of the classmate he barely knew to name, as if a wound that refused to heal itself to stability enough to stem the flow of lifeblood from a mortal injury. That, with no more than the flash of a smile and the glint of a blade to hold Izaya to Shizuo’s thoughts: now Shizuo finds himself haunted, as if Izaya has not so much left the city as disintegrated himself into a spirit to take up residence in the space of Shizuo’s mind and grant substance and clarity to his memories. Shizuo hears Izaya’s voice in his ears, sees Izaya’s smile in the corner of his eye, feels the heat of Izaya’s breath at his neck; at home, in the shower or in bed, it’s even worse, as his mind drifts towards the vivid memory of straining wrists and trembling legs and a clear voice breaking over heights of pleading, desperate want. Shizuo jerks off over and over again, finally granting himself permission to think of that person who has dominated his desire since before he let himself want him; but his orgasms seem to strip the fantasy free with their force, as his imagination fails to cover this experience that he refused to offer to the person he mistook for something other than what he was. Shizuo doesn’t know the feel of coming over Izaya’s fingers, doesn’t know the strain of pressing between Izaya’s thighs; and for all that he remembers the shudder of Izaya’s body beneath his he has no reference for the expression on the other’s face, has no memory to draw on for the shape of orgasm breaking over Izaya’s features. Shizuo feels as if he must have known, if he had only looked, feels certain that the sight of Izaya coming with Shizuo’s name on his lips must have been enough to unravel all his foolish beliefs into a certainty too great to be ignored; but he had never looked, had never seen, and as the days slide past it seems increasingly, terrifying likely that he may never have the chance again.

How long will Izaya make himself stay away? How long _can_ he make himself stay away? It’s a question Shizuo feels he should be able to answer by a measure of hours, at the utmost; but he remembers too clearly those years of high school and after, remembers the distant pull of want denied at every turn by Izaya’s deliberate avoidance. Izaya’s determination runs as deep as Shizuo’s strength, maybe deeper, and every day that Shizuo wakes to face alone feels more like the slope of an endless chasm that must await him from here. The routine of his life bears down on him, crushing as if to slow his heartbeat and drag at his movement, until he must inevitably collapse into dust, must finally shut his eyes and give up the struggle to live with a heart not so much broken as stolen out from a place he believed it entirely safe.

He has to find Izaya. He has to see, has to ask, has to understand; has to _own_ , and be owned, in a way he never knew to while he had the chance. Shizuo thinks about it all the time, at work and in bed and while out claiming some form or another of the sustenance that drags him on from one day to the next. Maybe he can call or text with someone else’s phone, with a number Izaya won’t know to expect. Maybe he can search through phone directories for unusual names; maybe he can take a train to the neighboring cities and trust to fate itself to bring him where he needs to be. There are a dozen things he could attempt, none of them with any real likelihood of success; he could spend the rest of his life trying to track Izaya down, could miss him at every turn even if Izaya is looking for him too. Shizuo scowls at the thought, grimacing at the pavement before him as he speeds his pace along the sidewalk on his way to his regular dinner at Russia Sushi, and then he turns a corner, and runs hard into the shoulder of a heavyset man approaching in the other direction.

“Shit,” the other man spits, rough over the word as he stumbles backwards from the force of Shizuo’s forward motion and into the man walking behind him. His companion catches at his shoulders to steady him, but his return to balance doesn’t ease the frown on the first man’s face. “What the hell--?”

“Ah.” Shizuo stops walking to face the pair and duck his head into apology. “Sorry about that.”

“You oughta be.” The man Shizuo ran into has collected himself somewhat; he’s on his own two feet, anyway, and tugging hard at his coat as if force will make it fit better across his blocky shoulders. “Kids nowadays shouldn’t just go wandering around with their damn eyes shut, they’ll get themselves into real trouble real fast.”

“Hey, now.” That’s the second man, taller and leaner than the first. He presses a hand to his companion’s shoulder, which comfort is promptly shaken off, but his smile doesn’t so much as flicker at the overt rejection. “It’s just an accident, Aozaki-san, nothing worth fighting over.”

“Who said anything about fighting?” the first man growls, but he’s turning aside anyway, striding away down the street as if he means to resume his forward motion without any further acknowledgment of his and Shizuo’s run-in. “We’ve got places to get to, anyway. Everything’s a mess lately, with all our information dried up.”

“Sure,” the second man says, in that same placating voice. He glances at Shizuo; there’s a flicker of something over his expression, a glimmer of something like surprise in the eye left unmarked by the dark scar dragging across his left eye socket. “Oh. Hey there, kid.”

“Hey,” Shizuo says, more out of politeness than anything else. He frowns at the man’s face, feeling something like recognition too faint to place. “Do I know you?”

The man huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “Better if you don’t,” he says. “Have a good day.” He lifts his hand to wave Shizuo off as he turns as if to walk away; he’s actually taking a step down the sidewalk when he speaks again. “Say, did you ever track down that soulmate of yours?”

Shizuo’s head turns, his attention dragging to stare after the other. “ _What_?”

The man tips his head, angling back over his shoulder as if to look at Shizuo with his bad eye, and recognition slots into place, rising from near-forgotten memory to unfold into Shizuo’s thoughts as the man’s lips curve onto a grin with a little more teeth in it than is entirely comfortable. He lifts the cane he’s holding onto with no visible difficulty in walking and swings it out towards the line of businesses set into the side of the building across the street.

“For your consideration,” he says, and swings the cane back around to tap against the street. “You look a little desperate.” He lifts his hand to wave over his shoulder. “Good luck.” And he’s moving away, falling into step alongside his companion as the other turns to growl something unintelligible over his shoulder. Shizuo hears the laugh the scarred man offers, as if the irritation on his partner’s tone is a joke, but he doesn’t truly have the attention to spare for either of them. His focus is pulled back as if by a magnet to the door the man gestured to, blank of any decoration but a simple sign over the entryway to explain what is being offered within. There’s a moment of hesitation, a breath while his thoughts stumble over each other for their speed: and then arrive at the same conclusion, all at once. Shizuo takes a breath, and turns to walk back towards the nearest crosswalk to bring him over the distance of the street and to the front of the shop that might have exactly the answer he’s been looking for.


	22. Shadow

It’s quiet outside of Ikebukuro.

Izaya’s first goal was distance. He knows personally how improbably effective Shizuo’s ability to track him is; going anywhere in or near the city was sure to do no more than give up his best retreats to Shizuo’s knowledge. He doesn’t return to his apartment either; he has no idea how fast Shizuo could get there and doesn’t want to take the chance. So he just leaves, shuts his phone off and buys himself an overnight train ticket and is free before Shizuo has even given up looking for him.

He finds himself another city. It’s easier to hide in plain sight in a crowd, easier to lose himself in the masses, and even his utterly unobtrusive behavior in his new location is aided by the wall of humanity around him all the time. He leaves his coat in his hotel room as soon as he’s checked in, as if the coat is going to be more of a giveaway to Shizuo than the magnetism the other apparently used to follow him over the distance of several blocks the last time Izaya tried to lose him; but it makes Izaya feel less conspicuous, if nothing else, to be no more than another young man, no more than another face glanced over and forgotten amidst the crowds where he sinks himself for all the long hours of the passing days.

The panic eases a little, after the first day. For the first hour Izaya jumps at every noise, sure it’s Shizuo coming after him even in the relative security of the train; for the first week he jerks to look at every shine of yellow-bleached hair, startles at every monochrome uniform he glimpses. But his existence remains his own, uninterrupted by Shizuo’s appearance on the street or at his doorstep, and as the days pass Izaya can feel himself relaxing with the first passing of danger, as if he’s being set free from the fist of terror that gripped him far more tightly than the gentle weight of Shizuo’s touch at his hip should have been able to achieve.

He’s not even sure why he ran. There was too much in that first moment, too much a sense of collapse, of destruction, of something long-held finally slipping free of Izaya’s fingers; all he knows is that he couldn’t stand to stay there, to watch whatever reaction Shizuo must have had break to too-much clarity over his face. Maybe he was angry, maybe he was relieved; either way Izaya knows he didn’t want to be there, no matter which direction Shizuo’s mood swung. He’s seen enough of the other’s strength to know the danger even unintentional fury could do to the relatively fragile structure of his body, and he knows enough of his own heart to guess at the devastation Shizuo’s love could bring with it. If Shizuo had reached out for him, if Shizuo had claimed him as his own, Izaya thinks he would never be able to find his way back to himself, would never again know what it is to be Izaya, whole and separate and alone; and so he ran, to wrap himself in his loneliness and try to remember how it feels to be alone again.

He’s not sure he succeeds. The days pass, certainly, time sliding through his fingers to leave him still breathing, still eating and moving and sleeping, sometimes, going through all the motions of a continued existence; but Izaya finds himself stalled to stillness, sometimes, sitting in a café staring into his cup of tea with no idea how much time has passed, no sense of how long he has been gazing unthinking into the liquid before him. Nights are the worst, stretching before him with long hours of uninterrupted thought; he hides from those with his phone, or just by walking, pacing over the streets of an unfamiliar city as if he can make the space his own through repetition, as if he will be able to make a home when his soul is long miles behind him. It’s a shallow existence, pointless and dull and empty; but it doesn’t hurt, at least no more than the constant, ceaseless ache that Izaya carried in his chest through all the years of high school and university, the pain that has become as much a part of him as anything else, and he’s willing enough to curl himself around that fixed point and let the rest of the world, the rest of the possibilities of his life, slide past him as unacknowledged as they are unclaimed.

It’s a quiet existence. Izaya isn’t sure he likes it -- he tries not to think about anything as immediate as _like_ , which leads too quickly to questions of contentment, of loneliness, of misery that he lacks answers for -- but he can bear it, which is enough in the moment, at least. He settles into the quiet of his hotel room, leaves his jacket hanging unseen and unworn in the shadows of his closet, and every night he casts himself down onto the impersonal tidiness of his fresh-made bed to scroll through the glow of his phone screen until either unconsciousness or the dawn comes to find him.

He doesn’t always leave his hotel room. It’s convenient to sightsee sometimes, a way to pass the interminable hours of the new days that Izaya never knows how to fill; he can waste hours looking for a restaurant to pique his interest, or in vague search of a coffee shop he hasn’t been to yet. But there’s a tension that comes with leaving, with setting foot on the open space of the street, and even after weeks have slipped past unmarked by any sign of pursuit Izaya can’t stop himself from jumping at every growling shout, from flinching at every white shirt. The less sleep he gets the harder it becomes to leave his hotel room, the more difficult the thought of venturing into the city becomes, until the light of dawn breaking on the other side of his window this morning was more exhausting than a comfort. Izaya had stood at the glass for another of those unmeasured spans of time, staring at the horizon as grey brightened to a glow, as illumination spread out over the city below; until the sun crept over the lip of the skyline to spear pain into his aching eyes, and Izaya had flinched and turned aside from the glass at last. He pulls the curtains shut over the windows, retreating behind the solid weight of them to the comfort of a self-made night. The sight of daybreak is enough to do what all the hours of evening failed to achieve and ache through his body with the dull thud of exhaustion, and Izaya leaves the curtains drawn and paces across the narrow span of his hotel room to collapse onto the crisp sheets of his unused bed still fully-clothed. The waistband of his pants digs into his hip, his shirt twists uncomfortably around his shoulders, but Izaya ignores both in favor of shutting his eyes and losing himself to what hours of rest he can steal from under the watchful eye of ever-waiting dreams.

He wakes groggy, hazy with too-much rest and the effect of dreams that scatter as soon as he wakes but still cast the shadow of their subject over his mind. His clothes are rumpled, he finds as he pushes himself up off the bed, his skin marked with raised lines of red as if a temporary imitation of those more permanent marks laid over his chest and hip; but that’s a dangerous thought, one Izaya only barely brushes against before he shakes his head and pushes himself to his feet with the haste of intent behind his motion. He’s shaky on his feet, lightheaded from his abrupt waking and maybe from a lack of food; he doesn’t remember when he last ate, doesn’t know what time it is now. The light around the edge of his blinds is a warm yellow, the sun high in the sky when he draws them open to peer out; he must have slept right through the morning and into afternoon, from the looks of things. It’s certainly time to go in search of a late breakfast, or order a lunch to be delivered to his room, if nothing else; Izaya gazes at the street below his window for a long moment, considering the fact, before turning on his heel and retreating back into his room to make a cup of tea instead.

It’s a straightforward process. Izaya misses his teapot and the use of a proper cup and saucer instead of the ceramic mug that is provided with his room here, but that’s another risky subject, one he flinches away from as rapidly as the details form in his mind. He can always buy himself additional dishes, he tells himself as he pours water into the heater and sets it to boil; perhaps that will be his project for the day, to wander through the city around him shopping for a proper teacup. Maybe he’ll get a tea infuser, too, so he can make something with a little more character than the inoffensive tea bags offered with his overnight stay; he’s just contemplating his options for finding such when he sees the shadow blossoming against his skin and jerks his hand so hard he tears the paper wrapper of the teabag entirely in two. The teabag falls to the desk but Izaya doesn’t reach to retrieve it from the surface; his attention is entirely fixed to his index finger, where a mark is rising as if iron floating up from the pulse of his blood in his veins.

It’s not just a mark. The color gives that away immediately: too dark for a bruise, too deliberate for a scar. It’s a deep shadow, a grey saturated very nearly to inky black, and there’s an intention to the curves that begin to lay themselves into Izaya’s skin even as he looks at them. He ought to recognize them -- the shapes are telltale, as obvious as the color fitting itself indelibly to the pale of his skin -- but he’s caught in the shock of the moment for a long span of time, locked in place at the edge of his desk as the water heater bubbles itself to boiling and clicks off, as his cup sits untouched at the edge of the desk, as letters expand to fit themselves under his skin until they form words, a pair of them, so carefully shaped that they fit around the base of his index finger as if a ring formed of ink instead of precious metal.

 _come home_. The words are simple, just the two together curving around the base of his finger; Izaya waits for long minutes, his water cooling to lukewarm without being poured, but there’s no more, just that simple statement, a plea as much as a command. Izaya’s heart is racing, shuddering in his chest as if to tremble panic through the whole of his body, but his hand is steady before him, his fingers absolutely still even as he feels the rest of himself quivering as if to come apart into his constituent parts and scatter him like dust over the space of his empty hotel room. There’s no name, no tie to Izaya himself or to the person who has pressed this shared ink into his skin; but of course there doesn’t need to be, not when his skin is an open canvas for the artistry of only two people in the whole of the world. Izaya can feel his whole body trembling, his blood gone dull in his veins brought alive and humming just by the memory of the magnet he left so far behind him, and for a moment he feels sure he could lift his hand and point straight to Ikebukuro, could draw a perfect line along the tug at his heart, the pull urging him to motion as if the ink on his finger is a line tying to permanence the connection Izaya has spent his whole life trying to ignore.

Izaya stands in the quiet of his hotel room for a long time, just gazing at the ink scripting out a demand, an order, a plea. By the time he lowers his hand to his side again his water has gone cold, and he has to begin the process of heating it all over again. He does, with careful focus behind his motions, deliberate intent for each of his actions; and he keeps his hand curled to a fist at his side, his thumb pressing close over the ink under his skin, and he doesn’t know if he’s trying to hide it or protect it.


	23. Sincere

Izaya isn’t watching when the second tattoo appears.

He’s checking every morning. It’s become a habit, something he slid into with painless ease after that first mark tangled itself around his finger like the end of a thread cast out over the ocean of fate: after every shower he opens the door to the bathroom to let the steam fade away and waits on the cool tile underfoot until the mirror clears enough to throw back his reflection with perfect clarity. Izaya considers the whole of his body, the length of his legs and the inside of his ankles and the curve of his hips and the flat of his chest; with the help of the mirror he even checks the back of his neck and the pale line behind each ear. He doesn’t really think he’ll find anything -- the first mark was unmistakable, and hiding the giveaway of the tattoo seems to defeat the purpose -- but he checks anyway, his heart racing on more speed than he has found in his waking existence since his abrupt departure from Ikebukuro. He finds scars as well-known as old friends, the damning one at his hip and the clean line over his chest and the array of others at brow and lip and arm and thigh; he stumbles upon new ones, tucked away at the small of his back or high up under his knee where he’s never had occasion to see them before. But there’s no smudge of ink, no glimpse of a shadow to give away the lines of another message, and Izaya ends up pulling his dark clothes on over pale-marked skin before ducking out of his hotel room and going to wander the streets, now with his right hand tucked safely away in his pocket instead of swinging at his side as he walks.

He doesn’t know when Shizuo gets the second tattoo, exactly. He knows it’s not there when he wakes, that his usual careful consideration of his bare skin shows no more than the tapestry of scars he is learning by rote; and he knows that it is there by the afternoon, that when he stirs from the idle consideration of the street below the upper-story café he has settled into for the hours after lunch that there is another band of ink wrapping itself around the third finger of his left hand like a strange, delicate kind of jewelry. For a moment he can feel his shoulders tense with something uncomfortably close to jealousy, that someone else might have seen the ink spilling over his skin before he did; but no one is looking at him, the few patrons filling out the other occupied tables are all at a distance or occupied in their own conversations or personal pursuits, and after a breath to collect himself Izaya tips himself sideways, feigning interest in the view out the window while he lifts his hand to let the illumination of the sunlight outside spill over the dark winding around his finger.

It’s as simple as the first. The text is small, pressed so tight it surely won’t hold its shape over the years to come; but for now it’s clear enough to read, while the tattoo must still be aching fresh hurt over Shizuo’s skin. There’s no pain for Izaya, of course, no indication of the hurt Shizuo is taking just for the chance to communicate with him: just the message itself, short and simple and landing all the harder for that. It’s only three words, not even quite long enough to close off the line winding around the base of Izaya’s finger, but those are enough to capture the whole of his attention, to slide his gaze across them over and over as if he’s memorizing them, as if he’s trying to pull meaning from them by repetition, as if they might lose their force under scrutiny. But they remain clear, the letters sharply formed and their meaning working the farther into him with every pass he makes over them, until by the time he takes a breath and lowers his hand he imagines he can taste the shape of the statement on his tongue, as if his lips might shift and form themselves to an echo of Shizuo’s speech as surely as his body crafts itself to a reflection of the other’s skin.

Izaya sits still in his café seat for a long moment, his hand slack in his lap and his cup of tea steaming before him. When he finally reaches out for the cup it’s with his right hand, his left still hidden in the shadows under the lip of his table, but his fingers are steady on the handle of his cup, and his hand doesn’t shake as he brings it to his lips to take a careful sip. He finishes his tea slowly, without rushing through the process even as he tastes none of the liquid at all; when he’s finished he stacks his cup atop the plate for the pastry he hardly remembers eating and brings them all up to the front counter to leave with the cashier.

“Thank you,” she says, offering a carefully polite smile as she takes the dishes from him. “See you next time.”

“Ah,” Izaya says, and ducks his head into an apologetic smile of his own. “Sorry, I don’t expect I’ll be coming back.”

The cashier blinks, clearly thrown off her usual pattern by this deviation from the script. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she says. “Was there anything wrong with your tea?”

“Not at all,” Izaya says. “I’ve been staying here on an extended business trip, and my work is just about over.” He tips his head and gives another smile, a little warmer than the first. “I’ll certainly miss the tea selection here.”

“Ah,” the cashier says, drawing the dishes in towards her so she can set them to the side to be cleaned at some later point in the day. “It’s always hard to be away so long.” She sets the dishes down and turns back to smile at Izaya with something like real warmth in her expression as she dries her hands at the edge of her apron. “You must be looking forward to heading home.”

Izaya glances over his shoulder, towards the window of the cafe. There’s nothing to see on the other side, just the shape of buildings in an unfamiliar skyline and the bustle of crowds on faraway streets, but his gaze fixes farther out, reaching for the horizon as if he can draw himself over the distance to the subject of his focus just by intent. His hand shifts, his thumb pressing in against the pattern of words wrapping his finger, but:

“Yes,” is all he says, as he turns back to the cashier once more to offer a deliberate smile. “I am.”


	24. Append

Shizuo didn’t expect the tattoos to itch so much.

The pain was a minor thing, hardly something he thinks he would have noticed if he hadn’t been watching the tattoo artist press the ink-soaked needle in under his skin to urge the dark color of the letters into permanence around his finger. Shizuo’s had worse at his own hand through the self-destructive years of his childhood, and more painful than any physical injury is the ache that has crippled his heartbeat since Izaya left him, since his life has been left to bleed itself dry from a wound that refuses to heal no matter how much time passes. There’s a relief just to taking action, to finding a means to communicate with that person that dominates all of Shizuo’s thoughts even when entirely absent from his life; Shizuo thinks he’ll use the whole of his body for a canvas if he needs to, will paint himself with the shades of his need until he has made a map clear enough for even Izaya’s lost wandering to follow it back to where they both belong. There’s a comfort to the letters on his skin, a reassurance to the clarity of the words, and Shizuo spends the whole walk home reading over the shape of the phrase and imagining Izaya, wherever he is, tracing over its shape and hearing Shizuo’s voice from the curve of the lines pressing under his skin.

Shizuo thinks about it for the whole week that follows, as the faint ache of hurt heals itself to an itch he has to fight to keep from picking at before the tattoo heals over enough for the ink of the letters to peel away on its own time. Izaya must have seen it, wherever he is; there’s no possibility of oversight, not when the dark is so vivid at Shizuo’s skin that he startles every time he glimpses it. But there’s no indication of response, no phone call and no message and no Izaya, and when the last healed-over line of the first tattoo comes free to leave Shizuo’s skin smooth under the careful touch of his fingers he goes back to the same artist to get a second line wrapping around a finger of his left hand instead. He’s had time to think about this one, to form it to intention in his mind until he doesn’t even flush to ask for the words, even with the intent of them made obvious by circumstance. The artist doesn’t so much as blink, hardly speaks at all except to nod in understanding, and once Shizuo is back at home he settles to work through a cigarette while he holds his left hand up in front of him to trace over the lines with his gaze since he’s not supposed to rub against the itch of the healing skin. There’s a clarity to them, to the dark text so vivid against the relative pale of his skin; Shizuo wonders what they look like on Izaya’s skin, left whiter even than the sun-touched tan Shizuo’s own hands carry. The letters on his right hand are slightly lighter, he thinks, not quite as absolute ink-dark as the fresh tattoo on his left; and it’s as he lifts both up over his head to compare them that he sees the shadow against his right index finger start to form.

For a moment Shizuo thinks it’s his tattoo changing, the ink inexplicably bleeding out into the surrounding skin to blot the letters out of visibility. He grimaces around the cigarette at his lips, frowning over whatever mistake he made in caring for the wound; but it’s healed, he’s sure of it, there’s no way for the ink to smear once set under his skin by the press of a needle. And it’s not smearing, he realizes, there’s more intention to the change than that; and it’s then that his mind catches up with his eyes, and he jerks to sit upright so fast he nearly falls off the couch where he was sprawling.

The ink isn’t smudging. It’s not that it’s blurring the letters out of readability, not even that it’s being overwritten. The addition is careful, deliberate lines shaping around the second letter of the phrase wrapping Shizuo’s finger like a ring; for a breath Shizuo stares uncomprehending at the change taking place before him. It’s only when the action ends and he has the whole word before him that he can read the shift that has occurred, the extra ink that has blossomed under his skin to make a statement out of a command. Shizuo stares, reading over the words made new by that one addition: _came home_ , and then he lurches to his feet, his heart thundering in his chest over that one line on his skin.

It can’t be. He must be mistaken, must be driven mad by hope; but there is no one else in the whole of the universe who could add that detail under Shizuo’s skin, no one but Izaya who could have given that response. The reply is unequivocal, no matter how many times Shizuo rereads the brief phrase; and then he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, and his attention drops from his right hand to his left as instantly as if responding to a shout at his ear.

There’s still the raised texture of his newest tattoo, the letters shaped to deliberate clarity by the press of an ink-soaked needle and humming as if with the afterimage of the distant pain they came with. Shizuo can’t see any change to the three words laid around his finger, can see no addition other than what he put there himself; but at the end, after the last word, a fourth is forming, rising under the texture of his skin with painless ease. Shizuo stares at it, watching the letters form with agonizing slowness as if he’s feeling the pain of Izaya’s body in the thud of his own heart, until the whole of the word is formed and he can read the entire response at once.

He stands still in his room for a moment after it’s done, gazing at the line of text wrapping around the ring finger of his left hand and feeling his throat tighten, feeling his eyes burn towards the threat of emotion. Then he takes a breath, and straightens his shoulders, and draws the dying cigarette at his lips free to crush out against his ashtray. He’s turning away as soon as the action is taken, leaving his apartment exactly as it is without so much as reaching for his phone before he’s pulling open the front door and striding out towards the street.

He has the answer he wanted, after all, and he can’t keep someone who loves him waiting.


	25. Found

It’s stupid to go back to Izaya’s old apartment. Shizuo knows that, in some rational part of his mind; he thinks about it the whole way there, walking at the fastest pace he can find on the crowded streets because even if a train would be quicker in the end he can’t imagine gaining the patience to stand still for any length of time. He can feel his tattoos prickling under his skin as if they’re crackling with electricity, as if he can feel Izaya’s heartbeat telegraphed through the ink to thrum through his veins alongside his own, and the sensation only grows stronger as he approaches the building made familiar by Izaya’s presence and the ground-in guilt of all those previous visits. There’s no guilt in Shizuo now, not so much as a flicker of the ache that used to be there; there’s just the rush of his heart pounding in his chest, and the sound of his footsteps thudding against the stairs as he climbs the near-endless flights of steps to the topmost floor and that apartment that has been the fixed point of his thoughts for so long.

Izaya might not be there. It’s been weeks that Shizuo has been sinking slowly into the muffled silence of his life alone, of a peace more suffocating than calm; he has no idea if Izaya has kept up on his rent payments, no particular reason to think the apartment hasn’t been handed over to some new tenant. Maybe Izaya is still in the city, still revisiting familiar streets to celebrate his presumed return; maybe he’s on his way to Shizuo’s home and they’ve missed each other again, as they have spent years missing each other. But all those previous coincidences weren’t coincidences at all as much as they were Izaya’s doing; and something in Shizuo is sure of his conclusion, as if the lines of ink under his skin are tethers holding Izaya still long enough for Shizuo to finally lay hand to him. So he climbs the stairs, feeling the steps quiver under his feet and his hand flex towards fists as if to close his grip around the text winding close around his fingers, and when he strides down the hallway he imagines Izaya can hear him coming, imagines he can feel the rhythm of the other’s breathing tangling with his own even over the distance between them.

Shizuo is warm all over by the time he arrives in front of Izaya’s doorway, unmarked by any name to indicate the person within; the doorbell is smudged with dark, showing the evidence of Shizuo’s last attempt to summon forth the person he has been looking for the whole of his life. Shizuo stares at the dried bloodstains, remembers the ache of resignation that hurt him more deeply than any self-inflicted wound when he last left here; and then he turns aside from the doorbell and reaches out to knock, once and hard, against the door instead. It’s a single rap, enough to thud against the doorframe with the force that Shizuo brings to it, and Shizuo drops his hand as soon as he’s offered it, finally ceasing his movement to wait with nothing but the patter of his heart in his chest for company.

He doesn’t know how long he waits. It could be a few brief seconds; it could be minutes, stretched long over the hesitation of a reply. Shizuo doesn’t care. He thinks he would wait here forever, if he needed to, hours and days and weeks if that’s what it takes to gain himself entrance, and it seems like an inevitability when he hears the sound of a lock turning over in the mechanism of the door. There’s a _click_ as the deadbolt settles itself into place, a pause as the handle turns; and then the door draws open, and Izaya looks up at Shizuo from the other side of the frame.

He looks different. It’s the first thing Shizuo thinks, although for a moment he can’t decide why he thinks so. Izaya’s wearing the same clothes as ever: a long-sleeved black shirt, tight pants washed out to a dark grey instead of the saturated shade of the shirt above them. Shizuo has seen him without his jacket over his shoulders enough to hardly balk at that; the addition of a wide silver band around one finger on his right hand is minimal enough that he barely glances at it. It’s something in his face, Shizuo thinks, more subtle than the familiar shine of his hair or the near-crimson shadows in his gaze; and it’s then that Izaya’s mouth shifts on not-quite-a-smile, and Shizuo sees the tiny scar at the corner of his lips, a break in the curve that has always been smooth that Shizuo has seen before. His gaze jumps up, tracking the pale break in the dark of Izaya’s eyebrow, finding the familiar mark that runs not-quite straight over the bridge of the other’s nose; and there, just at the edge of his hairline, there’s a tiny crescent shape that Shizuo remembers finding in his own reflection when he was still young enough to count the marks on his body as connections instead of flaws. He spent hours imagining what injury had caused that, what childhood accident had traced itself into his soulmate’s body to impress the same effect on Shizuo’s; he used to daydream about finding it in someone else’s face, about seeing the endpoint of his life’s trajectory marked out in that pale arc.

“Hi there, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says. His tone is soft; Shizuo thinks it might be aiming for lilting amusement, but his attempted smile flickers even as Shizuo looks at him, and the tremor in Izaya’s voice gives away any attempt at teasing before it’s begun. Izaya’s throat works over his speech before he finds words again. “Fancy meeting you in a place like this.”

Shizuo stares at Izaya for a moment. It’s bizarre to see those familiar marks echoed in someone else’s face, to finally see the proof he has spent the whole of his life aching for. It’s infuriating, to see Izaya’s mouth still twisting on that smile, as if he never left at all, as if all the weeks and months and years of pain he has caused are as easily swept aside as Shizuo’s resistance proved to be. It’s intoxicating to see him again, to see the way light shines off his hair, to see the curve of his mouth, to know him for who and what he is and has always been in himself, to Shizuo, for them both. Shizuo stares, matching memory to present, aligning imagination with reality, feeling his heart thudding itself to gravitational steadiness in his chest; he stares until Izaya’s smile gives way, until Izaya’s chin tips down, until Izaya’s lashes flutter on uncertainty, and it’s only then that he takes a breath and speaks.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He doesn’t mean the words to come out as harshly as they do. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to say until the sound is free of his lips; before that point it could be a curse or a confession as easily as the question it becomes. His hands are slack at his sides; he doesn’t know what they might become, if he’s going to reach out to draw Izaya to him or swing into a fist, if he might not do both at once. But for now he’s just standing, just watching, and before him Izaya’s lashes flutter over his eyes, and his head ducks down to cast his features into shadow.

“I wanted you to choose me.” Shizuo’s never heard Izaya sound like that before: no laughter, no flirtation, no tension. He just sounds soft, like surrender, like he’s let the last of his walls fall to leave just himself, as stripped to sincerity as the elegant lines of his face have been. “Not because I was your soulmate. Not because of fate. Because you wanted _me_.”

“I _do_ ,” Shizuo says, the words rough enough to come closer to anger than to warmth, and Izaya’s gaze flickers back up to him from under the shadow of his hair. “I’ve been wanting you and hating myself for it for _years_. If you had just _told_ me--”

“It would have defeated the purpose,” Izaya snaps back. “It’s not choosing if you know.”

“I couldn’t _let_ myself choose you not knowing,” Shizuo says. “I was supposed to be with someone else. _You_ were supposed to be with someone else. Every time I thought about you, every time I wanted you, it was knowing that I couldn’t have you, that you were too beautiful for me, that you were too _good_ for me, and then it turns out that I was meant to be with you all this time, that you were…” Shizuo’s words die off, then, fading out of reach of even his tumble of sincerity, but the _mine_ is still so clear he imagines he can hear the echo of it against the endless, empty interior of Izaya’s apartment.

Izaya stares up at Shizuo for a minute without saying anything. Then he takes a breath, carefully, like he might disturb the brief quiet that has settled between them.

“I think the _good_ part is pretty well disproven,” he says. It would pass as light if his voice didn’t wobble and break over the last word, however quickly he tries to cover the giveaway up with the huff of a laugh and the flicker of a smile. “I was doing my best to make sure you hated the soulmate standing in your way.” He shifts his weight to one foot; it’s a minor motion, but it angles his hip out to the side, turns the uncertain line of his body into a sinuous curve to match the deliberate angle of his lopsided smirk. “How’d I do, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo looks at Izaya in the doorway of his apartment: the curve of his lips, the shadow of his eyes, the taunt of his body, everything about him that has been a lure and a warning all this time, all of it layered over with the same marks Shizuo has been wearing on his own skin for all the years of his life. It’s impossible, even now, to believe, to make any sense out of the years Izaya has kept them apart at his own decision, for his own ill-founded purposes; but Shizuo knows the fit of that scar at Izaya’s brow, and recognizes the shape of the line cutting across the angle of that smirk, and he knows what is pressing under the weight of those fingers and what that silver ring is covering. It’s impossible, unbelievable, insane; and Shizuo can feel all the tension in him shift, aligning itself into a single, absolute, unswerving certainty.

He takes a step forward. Izaya is leaning in the doorway, filling the space of the frame with the curve of his body, but he rocks back as Shizuo comes forward, some measure of his teasing smirk flickering over nervousness as the other approaches. His head lifts towards the light, his chin raising so his gaze can hold to Shizuo’s as the other reaches out to press his fingers to silky hair, to curl his grip in against the back of Izaya’s head. Shizuo can feel Izaya tense against his hold, can hear the intake of breath Izaya takes as the other leans in; but then Shizuo’s mouth is pressing hard against Izaya’s, and whatever either of them might have said dissolves in the space between their parted lips. All the strain in Izaya’s shoulders gives way, sagging into the slack weight of such surprise Shizuo thinks it’s only his grip keeping the other on his feet at all, but it doesn’t matter because Shizuo is reaching out with his other hand too to catch and grip Izaya’s hip as well. Izaya makes some sound in the back of his throat, a whine or a plea or a moan, and as Shizuo rocks forward Izaya’s hand drops from the edge of the door to clutch at his hair, his fingers curling in to fist against the tangled locks. Shizuo steps forward again, stumbling Izaya back out of the doorway and into the space of his apartment, and Izaya goes, held to his feet by Shizuo’s hand at his head and Shizuo’s fingers against his hip as much as by the arm he has looped around Shizuo’s shoulder and the grip he’s struggling for at the other’s forearm. Shizuo pauses in the entryway, lingering to lick far into the heat of Izaya’s mouth, to taste the novelty of sincerity against his tongue and humming at the back of his throat, and when he pulls back for a breath it’s with Izaya so heavy-lidded with heat that he stays silent while Shizuo grates a breath enough to speak himself.

“I’m still angry with you,” he says in a voice so low and dark he doesn’t even recognize the sound as his own, doesn’t recognize the shape of the words as the same ones he framed in the span of his own thoughts. “I want to understand _why_ you didn’t tell me, not just that you didn’t.” He slides his hand down to the back of Izaya’s neck, bracing his fingers until he’s certain of his grip before he lets his other hand go so he can reach out behind him without looking to find the edge of the door left open in his wake.

“That’s going to wait,” he says, and shoves to push the door shut behind him. Izaya’s gaze flickers away from Shizuo’s face to track the sound of the door slamming into the frame, but when Shizuo rocks in closer his attention jumps back up to fix on the other leaning over him. Shizuo returns his palm to Izaya’s waist, fitting his fingers to the curve of the other’s body before trailing down to catch his fingers at Izaya’s shirt and push up under the hem hanging over the other’s hip. Izaya’s lashes flutter, his throat works, but he doesn’t say anything, and when Shizuo’s thumb presses to bare skin his fingers tighten at Shizuo’s collar as if to cling to the other’s clothing in lieu of his own. Shizuo takes a breath against Izaya’s mouth and feels the heat of it sticking in his throat, but when he speaks his voice is perfectly steady, without any trace of the fire he can feel burning as if to light the whole of his body to smouldering illumination.

“I’ve been looking for you my entire life,” he says. His thumb catches against the knife scar at Izaya’s hip, presses up to fit against the mark of it; before him Izaya’s lashes dip to shadow his eyes, his head tips back to lean into the press of Shizuo’s hold at his neck. Shizuo’s heart is racing in his chest, thrumming a drumbeat against the inside of his ribs, but then so is Izaya’s, he can see the pace of the other’s breathing in the flutter of his pulse against the strain of his neck. Shizuo ducks in to press his mouth to that rhythm, to catch the fever of Izaya’s blood at his lips, and Izaya arches against him, his whole body curving to fit itself to Shizuo’s own. Shizuo lingers for a moment, tasting the salt on Izaya’s skin, grounding out the heat of his body against that of Izaya’s, and when he pulls back it’s barely by an inch, just enough to fit his lips close against the curve of the other’s ear. “The first thing I’m going to do is find every mark on your body and match them to mine.” Izaya makes a raw sound, like a sob and a moan rolled up into one, and Shizuo drops his hand from the other’s side to the line of his jeans close against the curve of his ass so he can lift Izaya off the floor outright. Izaya doesn’t resist; he’s leaning in as fast as Shizuo is pulling him in, winding both his arms close around Shizuo’s neck and catching the other in the span of his legs. Shizuo doesn’t know which of them is holding more tightly, his arm bracing Izaya’s weight or Izaya’s legs angled around them, and he doesn’t care at the moment any more than he cares about the years of suffering they have both traversed to get here.

“I’ve been saving myself for you for years,” Shizuo says against Izaya’s hair. “I’m going to give you what’s yours, Izaya.” And he steps forward to bear them together to the stairs leading up to Izaya’s bedroom and the destiny he’s spent so long waiting for.


	26. Completion

It’s hard to let Izaya go.

Shizuo knows he needs to. They’ll have to separate from each other, if only just to strip off the barrier of clothing still keeping them apart; and even as near as they are, with Izaya’s heart pounding hard against the thrumming rhythm of Shizuo’s, Shizuo craves more, everything, all he can lay claim to. He has spent the whole of his life aching for connection with his soulmate, for the alignment that must come with the arrival of that fixed point that will offer the satisfaction of belonging to a life too long lived alone; he’s spent every moment since he met Izaya craving the other with a force just as keen, even if tempered with the guilt that he thought he had to feel, that kept them apart when he thinks nothing else could have managed it. But that guilt is gone, revealed as the foolishness it has been all these years, all this time, and whatever frustration Shizuo might have over his needless suffering is fixing itself on need instead, demanding payment in the form of a satisfaction he has only been able to dream of before now. It’s dizzying just to have Izaya against him, to be able to turn his strength to holding Izaya to him instead of trying to push him away, and even the knowledge that there is only more to come is barely enough to ease Shizuo’s hold pinning Izaya to him.

It helps that Izaya is no more eager to retreat. He clings to Shizuo even after the other has loosened his grip enough to let Izaya lower himself to the ground; even with both feet flat on the floor his spine curves to match his body to Shizuo’s, his hands remain wound desperation-tight into Shizuo’s hair to cling to the heat of the other’s body. Shizuo has to turn in to breathe at Izaya’s hair, to press against Izaya’s skin, to urge the force of a kiss against the part of Izaya’s lips; and then he finally gets his hands braced at the other’s hips, and pushes him away with the most strength he thinks he has ever had occasion to use at one time.

“Stay there,” Shizuo says. The words come out low, growling onto heat with no consideration for his intention, but they do what they need to and keep Izaya in place while Shizuo backs away towards the bedroom door. He doesn’t need to shut it, not with no one else in the apartment but the two of them and Izaya staring at him with all the color of his eyes blown out to shadowed want; but Shizuo remembers too well the trickle of smoke sliding through his fingers, and Izaya slipping free even pinned by Shizuo’s hold to the soft of his bed, and there is a fear in him too much to leave an easy means of escape. So he pushes the door shut, and turns the lock over too, and if Izaya’s mouth quirks onto a smirk in answer it’s short-lived, melting to the heat Shizuo can see straining so clearly in the other’s shoulders as if an echo of the tension resonating itself through his own.

Shizuo pauses there. It’s a little easier with the door shut, with the relatively confined space of the bedroom around them to delineate the span of this moment; the span of the whole world, so far as Shizuo as concerned, so long as he and Izaya are in it together. Izaya is standing where Shizuo left him, back straight and hands at his sides, even if Shizuo can see adrenaline quivering through his fingertips and threatening the elegant stance of his legs. Shizuo can’t blame him for that; he can feel electricity crackling through the entirety of his body too, like lightning trapped in a night-dark sky searching for a clear path to a grounding point. Shizuo knows where he will touch down, knows who it is that will take the force of that tension that has been building in him over the span of a decade; but he lingers at the door, two long strides away from Izaya still standing at the foot of the bed, and for a long minute he stares.

Izaya is patterned with scars. His clothes cover most of them -- the worst, at his hip, and the long one that must trail across his chest -- but even with his sleeves drawn long over his wrists and his feet half-hidden in the shadow of his pants his face shows marks that Shizuo has never seen before, that have remained hidden by one or another of Izaya’s manipulations. It’s not that they mar his appearance -- none of them are large, and Shizuo thinks even the most gruesome scar would be a blessing for the connection it would prove -- but they lay a map that Shizuo had never even suspected was there, they turn the clean slate of Izaya’s inhuman beauty into a path he had never thought to seek for, had never even let himself dream of. He stares at those marks, tiny and pale and speaking volumes just by their existence, and when Shizuo takes a breath it’s with tension straining at the back of his throat to turn his request to a command.

“Show me.”

Izaya’s lashes dip, his chin comes forward. For a moment Shizuo loses sight of his eyes, loses his grip on the tremor of adrenaline quivering at the other’s lips; but it’s a momentary loss, only a moment before Izaya is ducking his head with intention instead of embarrassment and reaching for the hem of his shirt. He pauses for a heartbeat, his fingers clenching tight at the edge of the fabric, and then his arms flex, his hands lift, and his shirt rises up to lay bare the canvas of his skin for Shizuo’s wanting gaze.

It’s all there. The deep scar at his hip, still colored with the shadow of the damage taken too recently to have yet faded out to porcelain-pale; the tracery of injuries from Shizuo’s childhood, a ragged mark at Izaya’s ribcage and the off-center line of a burn a much-younger Shizuo claimed from leaning against a still-hot stove. And finally, as Izaya’s shirt comes up to hide his face for the moment he takes to strip it over his hair and off his head: the line Izaya put there himself, a diagonal as straight as if drawn with a ruler, proof of an injury bled out by Shizuo himself laid now into Izaya’s skin, where it must have been all these long years of loneliness. Shizuo’s breath catches, his chest tightening as if he’s feeling the hurt of that blade all over again, and Izaya strips his shirt up over his head and reaches to let it slide off his arms and crumple to a pool of dark at the floor. He meets Shizuo’s gaze, still with his chin tipped down and his eyes in shadow, and Shizuo swallows to clear his throat and reaches for the clip holding his tie in place against his collar. He drops the bowtie at his feet, strips his vest off as easily; even his shirt he casts to the floor without concern for the wrinkles it will take on from this casual mistreatment. It’s all too much, too many layers to keep his skin from Izaya’s gaze, until it’s a relief to be tugging his undershirt up out of his pants and over his head. Shizuo strips himself free in one motion, moving quickly to rid himself of his shirt, and so he sees the flicker at Izaya’s lashes, the angle of his shoulders easing free of some unvoiced tension as he sees Shizuo’s skin, as if he somehow doubted that connection that Shizuo has never tried to hide. Shizuo tosses his undershirt aside without watching where it falls, without sparing even a glance that he could spend on Izaya instead, and then he steps forward, slow and deliberate, to close the gap between them.

Izaya doesn’t move. He stays exactly where Shizuo set him, waiting as if the most he can manage is to stop himself from running from Shizuo’s approach. When Shizuo reaches out to touch a palm to the span of his chest he can feel Izaya trembling, can feel the strain coursing through the other’s body with every beat of his heart; Izaya’s lashes flutter, his lips part. When he shudders an exhale Shizuo can feel the heat of it against his skin.

Shizuo lets a breath go. “Izaya,” he says, just that, spoken with all the weight he has only ever used for the word _soulmate_ before; and then he drops his hands, and when he reaches for the front of Izaya’s pants Izaya move to claim the buckle of Shizuo’s belt himself.

They don’t kiss. Shizuo thinks he might never be able to stop again, if he presses his mouth to Izaya’s now; and they still have too much clothing, too many layers of fabric keeping their bodies apart. But Shizuo ducks closer all the same, breathing in against Izaya’s hair, Izaya’s shoulder, Izaya’s neck while he fumbles open the front of the other’s pants with increasingly clumsy fingers; and Izaya tips his head forward to press his forehead to Shizuo’s shoulder like he’s bracing himself while he works open the other’s belt and slacks with significantly greater dexterity. Izaya has his fingers in under the waistband of Shizuo’s clothes by the time Shizuo is dragging roughly at the zipper of Izaya’s pants; Shizuo can feel Izaya’s fingers like they’re branding their mark into his bare skin as they urge over his hips and down the length of his thighs. When Shizuo takes a step backwards so he can slide free of his shoes and pants at once Izaya follows him in, drawing closer as if Shizuo’s body is magnetized, as if he can’t find breath for himself except against the heat of Shizuo’s skin. Shizuo’s doing his part too; he might be stepping free of his shoes and pants but he’s pulling at Izaya’s clothes too, gripping hard at the other’s waistband to hitch Izaya in closer to him as rapidly as Izaya reaches out. Izaya turns his head in, pressing close enough that his lips brush the tension at Shizuo’s neck, and Shizuo has to pull back to drop to a knee before he takes the invitation of Izaya’s parted lips so near to his own. Izaya doesn’t protest this retreat -- he grabs at Shizuo’s shoulder as if to brace himself, gripping hard enough that Shizuo can feel the edge of the plain ring he’s wearing on his finger cut against the skin -- and when Shizuo drags at Izaya’s clothes Izaya leans in closer at the support of the other’s body so he can step free of the fabric as quickly as Shizuo urges it down the endless length of graceful legs.

Izaya is hard well before Shizuo gets his pants off. He’s been hard for some time; Shizuo felt the proof of it when he gathered the other into his arms to bear them up the stairs, and he’s sure in himself that his own arousal stirring to a roar as he came through Izaya’s front door was no more than a mirror of the other’s, that their desire must follow one from the other as surely as the marks across their skin. Shizuo’s seen Izaya like this before, too; if the other’s chest and long legs were off-limits, the flushed temptation of his heat-thickened cock has always been part of the offer Izaya has always made of himself. But it seems different, with the rest of Izaya’s body stripped to scar-marked pale; or maybe it’s Shizuo that is different, that when he looks at Izaya now he can let himself feel the pulse of desire thudding through him with such force that he imagines he can feel it in the length of his own cock twitching at his hips. Shizuo has every intention of bearing Izaya back to the bed, of finally laying claim to that invitation Izaya has been making even before Shizuo ever set foot in this apartment; but for a moment he nearly turns his head to the side, nearly opens his mouth to press his lips to Izaya’s length and suck the salt-heat of the other’s arousal down his own throat. Izaya’s visibly, painfully hard, the head of his cock shining with the smeared wet of anticipation; Shizuo thinks he could pull Izaya into his mouth at one go, could have him moaning through the convulsion of orgasm almost for the press of his lips and nothing else. It’s a temptation worse than anything he’s felt before; it’s only the ache of his own desire, the ground-in need to feel Izaya coming around him, that gives Shizuo the strength to turn his head to the side instead to press his lips hard to the old scar at Izaya’s hip instead of to the length of the other’s cock. Izaya curves in over him, his balance tilting to claim the right to shadow Shizuo’s skin, and Shizuo reaches up to close his fingers around Izaya’s wrist so he can draw the other’s hand free of his hair before turning his head.

“These too.” He draws his touch down, pressing to the tension of Izaya’s fingers as he goes until he can set his fingers tight against the silver band hiding the ink wrapping around Izaya’s right index finger. Izaya takes the suggestion to draw his hand back, freeing his finger with a grace that leaves Shizuo flushing under a surge of heat, and Shizuo lets the ring drop to the floor as he turns his head to reach for Izaya’s other hand. This one Izaya offers at once, turning his palm down and extending his fingers towards Shizuo; Shizuo catches at the matched band of silver around Izaya’s ring finger to slide it free of the other’s skin. It’s a strange kind of inverted motion, pulling the jewelry free to leave that imprint of their connection visible instead, but then Shizuo can’t think of any ring that could speak as clearly for the both of them as the words pressed into their skin. He drops that ring too, hears it fall without turning to watch, and when he lifts his hand again it’s to touch gently against the dark of Izaya’s tattoo, trailing over the letters still aching on Shizuo’s matched finger and around the raised weight of that last word Izaya added on his own. Izaya lets him look, submitting to Shizuo’s touch even though Shizuo can feel the other’s fingers trembling in his grasp, but Shizuo doesn’t say anything at all. He just presses against Izaya’s finger, imprinting the weight of the words with the texture of his fingerprint, and then he draws Izaya’s open hand in so he can kiss just against the inside cup of the other’s palm. Izaya’s breath catches, tightening to audibility where he’s looking down at Shizuo before him, and Shizuo draws back so he can rise to his feet in one smooth motion. Izaya’s gaze follows his face, turning up to the light as his eyes hold Shizuo’s attention, and Shizuo lets his hand go to reach for Izaya’s back instead.

“Come here,” he says, his voice still that low, radiant growl, and Izaya reaches for Shizuo’s neck as Shizuo ducks his head and presses his hand to the other’s thigh at once. Their bodies fit together smoothly, this time, hot skin to hot skin, and when Izaya’s lips part against Shizuo’s it’s to moan a sound that Shizuo can feel course straight down his spine to knot at the strain of his cock. Shizuo’s fingers flex at Izaya’s thigh, Izaya lifts his leg to catch around Shizuo’s hip, and when his back arches Shizuo can feel the motion urge Izaya’s cock in against the line of his hip and drag through a thrusting motion of friction. Shizuo’s thighs jerk, his hips bucking forward to grind against the inside angle of Izaya’s thigh, and Izaya makes a desperate sound and lifts himself into Shizuo’s hold outright, locking both legs around the other’s hips as he tangles his hands into Shizuo’s hair and opens his mouth wide. Izaya’s tongue urges against Shizuo’s mouth, slipping past his lips to drag teasing sensation over the roof of his mouth and in over the heat of his tongue, and Shizuo stumbles forward, leaving the heap of their discarded clothing behind them so he can steer them in the direction of the bed instead.

Neither of them let go when Shizuo catches a knee at the edge of the mattress. Izaya’s arms stay tight around Shizuo’s neck, his back curves to press his chest in near to the other’s body; when Shizuo lets his hand go to brace at the sheets and slow their descent into control instead of an outright fall he still keeps his grip at Izaya’s back to hold them together. They land against the sheets like that, Shizuo close atop Izaya pinned beneath him, and even with the whole of Shizuo’s weight crushing him Izaya just groans into Shizuo’s mouth and tightens a fist into the other’s hair. Shizuo angles his head to the side, tipping to urge closer so he can lick far into the heat of Izaya’s mouth before he draws back to gasp for a breath and struggle himself into coherency enough for speech.

“Izaya,” he grates. Izaya’s lashes shift, raising over dark-hazed eyes to fix his gaze on Shizuo above him; his mouth is flushed red, his cheeks stained to a feverish heat that Shizuo can feel clench a knot of helpless desire deep down in his belly. He has to clench his fingers on the sheets under his palm just to hold himself steady, just to keep from ducking in and urging his body against Izaya’s until they find relief just from the clumsy action of friction. The strain tenses at his throat and drags his voice down to depths Shizuo could never find alone. “Where’s the lube?”

Izaya blinks hard, looking like he’s struggling to find coherency of his own, before he manages to turn his head to the side and nod in the direction of the table alongside the bed. “There,” he says, and slides a hand away from Shizuo’s shoulder to reach out and gesture as well. Shizuo looks to track the motion, trailing the line of Izaya’s outstretched arm to the drawer at the front of the table, and he leans in at once, giving up the weight of his arm around Izaya to reach for the drawer instead. Izaya whimpers at the motion and tightens his hold on Shizuo’s hair, but Shizuo pulls away, driven by only a slightly greater focus than what Izaya is presently mustering. He drags open the drawer, pulling it nearly halfway out with the force of his action before reaching in to grab for the slippery bottle within. There’s more there too, silicon and plastic enough to catch a flicker of Shizuo’s interest, but it’s not toys he’s interested in right now, however much he eventually would like to investigate the same. He doesn’t need any assistance beyond lubrication for what he intends to claim from Izaya tonight, and that he has in the spill from the bottle he’s wrenching open as he rocks back over his heels to pour messy wet all across his fingers and the open catch of his palm.

Izaya’s trembling against the sheets by the time Shizuo gets the bottle closed up again and tossed aside to the weight of the blankets around them. He’s eased the strain of his legs around Shizuo’s hips enough to let his thighs angle wide over the sheets of his bed; he has one arm up over his face, his forearm casting a shadow over his eyes almost but not quite enough to hide the shift of his lashes as he watches Shizuo over him. His other arm is slack along the sheets next to him, his fingers working against the texture of the blankets with unconscious strain, and Shizuo can see the pace of his breathing working under the diagonal line of that scar lying straight across the span of his chest. He’s a perfect contradiction, grace and anxiety at once, want and nerves in equal parts: the open desire of his angled thighs and flushed cock, the shadow of concealment hiding his expression and tensing over his shoulders. Shizuo has never seen him so clearly before, has never so easily read the strain at his jaw and the want in his eyes, and he’s never, not in all the years he has wanted and wished and ached, seen Izaya so beautiful as he is now.

Shizuo doesn’t speak. He lacks words for what it is he’s feeling, lacks the coherency to put a frame to the tidal wave of desire that sweeps over him; it’s as intense as anger, as overwhelming as violence. His body moves on its own, his thighs working to rock him up over his knees, his hand reaching out to clasp hard at Izaya’s hip and lock the other into place against the bed, and when he reaches out the slick angle of his fingers feels like a promise written in the shape of his body. Izaya shudders at the touch of Shizuo’s hand, his thighs tensing involuntarily as Shizuo’s middle finger slides wet-slick against the strain at his entrance, and Shizuo pushes into that strain, urging Izaya to open around his touch without waiting. His arm flexes, Izaya’s breath spends itself, and then he’s sliding in, stroking deep into Izaya on the first thrust with force enough to bury the whole of his finger into the other’s body. Izaya clenches hard around him, his body seizing against the span of Shizuo’s knuckles and the length of his touch, but Shizuo knows this, Shizuo remembers this, and Shizuo has learned how Izaya likes this. He draws back immediately, pulling away even while Izaya is caught in the first trembling throes of sensation, and when he thrusts back in Izaya’s head angles back, his throat curving up to the light as his arm slides up to let him clutch for restraint against the sheets over his head. His legs tighten, his knees dig in hard against Shizuo’s hips, and Shizuo steadies his position and keeps going, working his touch into Izaya with smooth strokes that hold to the rough force of a fixed pace rather than giving way to the convulsion of sensation his fingers are urging from the other.

“You like it like this,” Shizuo says, speaking almost to himself more than to Izaya in truth. Izaya has his head angled to the side, his face turned in towards the inside of his elbow as if he’s halfway to hiding his features, but distraction has left the motion incomplete and his heavy-lidded gaze is clear to see in the illumination of the light overhead. Izaya’s lips are parted, his jaw slack with the force of the friction Shizuo is working into him; Shizuo can see the pace of the other’s breathing falling into rhythm with the stroke of his hand, with the insistent force of his touch driving into the other. Shizuo leans in closer to angle over Izaya before him, letting the weight of his body pin the other down as he fixes his gaze on Izaya’s features, as he drinks in every shudder of pleasure over Izaya’s face with all the appreciation of a man granted water after a lifetime of dying of thirst. “You’re the one who taught me.” He huffs a laugh, not sure if it’s real amusement or disbelief in his throat. “I guess it did come in useful after all.”

Izaya presses his lips together and visibly swallows before gasping a fresh breath of air. “I told you when we began,” he says, and lifts his head enough to cut his gaze through his lashes at Shizuo over him. The part of his lips looks sultry from an angle, the heat-dizzy weight of his gaze becomes a seduction. “I don’t care what my soulmate does, so long as I get to reap the benefits.”

Shizuo snorts. “You gave me a thorough education,” he says. He draws his touch back, sliding his finger free so he can fit his ring finger alongside the first; the action urges his gaze down too, fixes his focus on the wet heat of his touch pressing against Izaya’s entrance for a moment as he angles his wrist to push against the other’s body. Izaya’s thighs strain, his body clenches tight, but when Shizuo’s arm works his fingers push up and in, and against the bed before him Izaya groans something of surrender and heat together in his throat. Shizuo presses up, turning his wrist to work his fingers deeper; it’s only as he’s drawing his touch back for another thrust that he finds a breath for himself to actually fit words to the ache of anxiety at the back of his thoughts.

“Have you?” Shizuo asks, giving the words to the rhythm of his fingers working into Izaya rather than up to the other’s face. He doesn’t know what answer he wants, doesn’t know what he dares to ask for, but he can’t keep himself from asking, even with his shoulders tensing on fear of what reply he might get. “With anyone else?”

Shizuo can hear Izaya’s head turn against the sheets, can feel the weight of the other’s gaze on him like a touch. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t raise his attention to meet Izaya’s; he keeps looking down, keeps his focus on the work of his fingers while silence weights in the air. In the quiet of that, the sound of Izaya taking a breath comes loud as a shout.

“I haven’t,” Izaya says. Shizuo’s attention pulls up; Izaya’s watching him, now, his head ducked down so he can look at Shizuo kneeling over him. Their eyes meet for a heartbeat of time; then Izaya’s mouth shifts, struggling towards the sketch of a smile that doesn’t make it to the shadows of uncertainty at his eyes. “Sorry, Shizu-chan. I wanted to practice but I’ve been hung up on this one guy since high school, and I wasted all my time trying to get into his bed.”

Shizuo huffs a breath, not sure if it’s a laugh or a groan in his throat. “No.” He shakes his head, draws his fingers back for the deliberate punctuation of another thrust. “You didn’t waste anything.”

“He never would fuck me,” Izaya says. His lashes are heavy over his eyes, his breath trembling in his throat; at the sheets his fingers are catching, dragging and pulling in a bid for traction that slides free as quickly as Shizuo works through another motion. “You’ll still be my first in that, Shizu-chan.”

“God,” Shizuo groans, and thrusts up harder than he should. Izaya’s legs jerk, Izaya’s head angles back, but the sound he makes is heat more than hurt, and when he reaches up from the bed it’s to grab at Shizuo’s wrist bracing him down to the sheets. Shizuo can feel the edge of Izaya’s fingernails digging indentations into his skin. “ _Izaya_.”

Izaya presses his mouth closed and licks his lips with clear focus; Shizuo can see the strain against his neck even before Izaya turns his head against the sheets to draw a deep inhale. “Shizuo,” he says, and the sound of his name on those lips is enough to course down the whole length of Shizuo’s spine and flex his hips forward into a helpless, needy motion of reaching friction. Izaya’s lashes lift; beneath their weight his gaze is endless dark, shadows that reach out to swallow up everything in their wake. “Do it.”

Shizuo’s motion stalls, the steady rhythm of his fingers sticking out-of-pace against the rush of arousal that courses through the whole of his body. Izaya’s fingers tighten at his wrist but Shizuo doesn’t look down at the dull ache of his skin tearing to blood beneath the other’s grip; he’s too busy staring at those endless eyes, too busy struggling for coherency enough to even shake his head.

“I can’t,” he says, and shifts his fingers to punctuate. His motion is smooth with the slick coating his skin but Izaya’s still tight around him, even when he’s not clenching through a surge of sensation; Shizuo isn’t sure he can even fit into the grip of Izaya’s body as he is, much less move with any kind of ease. “I need more time, you’re too tight. You need another finger, still.”

Izaya shakes his head, the movement sharp and decisive against the sheets. “I don’t _want_ another finger,” he says. “I want to feel you the whole way in.” He lifts his arm from the bed over his head to brace his elbow at the mattress so he can push up against the support; his grip at Shizuo’s wrist draws away, his fingers sliding free so he can reach out instead. When his fingertips drag over the head of Shizuo’s cock Shizuo can feel the contact like an electrical shock, can feel every muscle in his body flex and tense into a spasm of sensation he can’t restrain any more than he can control it. His shoulders shift, his hips buck forward, his throat strains on a groan, and Izaya breathes a shudder that sounds nearly like a laugh.

“I want you,” he says, in a voice dark enough to hang like smoke in the air. His fingers urge down, trailing against the length of Shizuo’s cock to curl against the base; when he starts to draw back up Shizuo’s entire body tremors with it, quaking as if it’s strength Izaya is stripping free under the grip of his hold. “Inside me. Over me. Hold me down and _take_ me, Shizu-chan.”

“Stop,” Shizuo grates, and lets Izaya’s hip go so he can seize against the other’s wrist instead and stall the friction dragging up over him. “ _Stop_ or I won’t be able to hold back.”

“Good,” Izaya says. There’s tension building on his voice, heat tight in his throat; even held still, his fingers flex around Shizuo’s cock like he’s looking to pull free the orgasm that Shizuo has been fighting back for far longer than is reasonable. “I want it. Come for me, Shizuo, however and wherever you want but _for_ me.”

“Fuck,” Shizuo says, and wrenches at Izaya’s wrist to drag his hand away. “ _Fine_.” He slides his fingers free of Izaya’s body, fast enough that Izaya’s lashes dip and his throat quivers on a huff of heat, and rocks back instead, leaning against his heels so he can close the slick over his palm around himself and smooth lube up over the whole heat of his cock. It’s a quick motion, intended for function more than pleasure, but the sensation still aches at Shizuo’s spine, he can still feel himself twitch against the grip of his hand. He’s too hard, he’s too desperate, he’s on the verge already; but Izaya is falling back to the bed, his flushed-red lips parted and his hair spilling around his face, and when he tips his knees wide the invitation is more than Shizuo knows how to resist. He’s spent too long holding back, too long fighting away this particular desire on behalf of an imagined connection; and now that same is laid bare before him, his soulmate and Izaya stripped down to telltale skin in a single action, and Shizuo has no defenses to refuse this. He lets Izaya’s hand go as he rocks forward onto his knees again, coming up to brace at the sheets as he leans in over Izaya and slides his legs apart to lower his weight, and Izaya’s reaching to fist at his hair and clutch at his back as if to pull Shizuo down and against him by the application of his own desperate strength.

“Yes,” he’s saying, spilling words past inhales that sound as if he’s been sprinting, that come faster for each one he drags into his chest. “Please, please, yes, Shizu-chan, I want it, I _want_ ” and Shizuo rocks his hips forward, and the head of his cock slides slick against Izaya’s skin, and Izaya’s breathless pleas melt into a groan that Shizuo can feel resonate in the tension of his balls pulled up against the base of his cock. Shizuo rocks against his bracing hand, steadying himself as much as he can while Izaya angles his hips up and catches a leg around Shizuo’s waist, and then he has to look down as he steadies his slick hold around the base of his cock so he can line himself up. Izaya is trembling before him, his whole body quivering with the tension of want and desperation and expectation and arousal, but still there’s something like magnetism, or a bone-deep instinct, Shizuo thinks, that draws them together. His thighs shift, Izaya’s back curves, and Shizuo’s cock presses flush to the wet slick of Izaya’s entrance. Izaya rasps an inhale, sounding like he’s choking on the sound, and Shizuo’s legs strain, and Shizuo pushes forward to penetrate Izaya beneath him.

He doesn’t make it all the way. It’s a close fit, far tighter around the urging of his cock than even two fingers together, and Izaya clenches down against him almost as soon as Shizuo begins to fill him, seizing so hard that Shizuo thinks for a moment he’s panicking, that it’s too much after all. But Izaya is still flushed crimson-warm when Shizuo looks up to gauge his expression, his eyes heavy and his lips parted, and whatever it is trembling in the fingers pressing to Shizuo’s skin Shizuo can’t see any trace of pain anywhere in the other’s expression. He pauses for a moment, trying to collect himself, trying to find words enough to communicate when his mind is whirling and his body is shaking; and around him Izaya eases and tenses again, his body arching up as if to draw Shizuo deeper just by his movement. Shizuo rocks forward, answering Izaya’s plea by instinct, and as his cock sinks farther Izaya’s head goes back, his fingers clench at Shizuo’s body as the rest of his body quakes with resonant force. Shizuo can feel him shaking, can feel the tension flexing in Izaya’s thighs at his hips and the fingers in his hair and the shake of the other’s breathing; he can feel it around him, clenching with the rhythm of a heartbeat around his cock sliding deeper into Izaya with every motion he takes. Shizuo feels like he’s coming apart, as if his whole identity is unravelling as his body joins deeper with Izaya’s, as their physical existences meld into a single component, until it takes him a long moment to recognize the strain against his thighs, the pulse of anticipation throbbing through his cock as much-repressed arousal flares to uncontrollable heights.

“God,” Shizuo blurts, grabbing at Izaya’s hip with some thought to brace them still, to stifle their movement and so hold back the rising wave of his orgasm threatening to sweep them to the conclusion of their coupling before it’s even well begun. “Izaya--”

He means to say more. There are words, a plea or an apology or just heat, something at the back of his tongue. But Izaya shudders at the sound of his name, quaking like he’s a struck bell, and Shizuo’s voice is stripped by the sound in Izaya’s throat and the heat that flares over him in immediate, impossible answer. For a moment he’s speechless, unable even to muster words for the warning he wants to give of the arousal surging through him, the pleasure trying to wrest itself free of his hold; then he exerts a greater feat of strength than he has ever found in himself before, and he ducks his head to gasp a breath as he shoves back against the desire trying to break over and drag him under. Tension eases back, loosening its inevitable grip on him with ill grace, and Shizuo shudders over his exhale and returns to the span of his body so he can keep moving. He braces himself, steadying his thoughts against the rush of heat that will hit him, and then he moves again, urging his weight forward to press farther into Izaya before him. His thighs flex, his hips rock, and Izaya opens for him, his body straining and his breath breaking as Shizuo’s cock delves further into the heat of his body.

Shizuo can feel every tremor in Izaya, not just from the fingers at his hair or the knees at his hips but around him, flexing tension around the connection of his cock within the other, until he feels like the racing of his heart must be matching to that rhythm of Izaya’s reflexive tension clenching and easing, as if their breathing must be finding its way to an echo one of the other and back again to make a universe of just the few inches left between one existence and the other. Shizuo moves forward again, urging closer to press deeper, until almost the whole of his cock is sheathed in Izaya’s body, and Izaya’s back curves, his spine arching as if he’s making an offer of those long-hidden scars over his chest for Shizuo’s gaze. Shizuo can’t breathe, can’t find his composure no matter how much oxygen he gasps and can’t control the thud of his heart, and he can feel his strength failing him, self-control wearing away with every flutter of Izaya tightening around him.

“Izaya,” he says again, his voice unfolding onto the sound of a plea, now, as he draws his hips back to slide away from the friction tight around him. The drag is heat on its own, pleasure dangerous against the strain of his self-control, but even as he pulls back Shizuo feels the loss as an ache, as if even that moment of connection is enough to open up heights of pleasure that he wants nothing so much as to strain for again. He tightens his grip at Izaya’s hip as much to steady himself as to hold the other in place; his hips tense, his thighs flex to bear him forward with a reflex he can’t fight back. Shizuo gasps and shakes his head, surrendering to the inevitable even as he clings to control enough to lift his gaze to Izaya’s. “You’re--you’re too tight, I can’t last.” His body rocks forward, his cock slides fractionally deeper; Izaya moans in the back of his throat, a low sound like Shizuo has never heard from him before. “Fuck, Izaya, I’m going to come.”

“Yes,” Izaya manages. His lashes flutter, his head lifts, but even when his gaze catches at Shizuo’s it’s hazy, knocked out of all focus by the sensation working itself to tremors through the whole of his body. “Please.” He drags at the back of Shizuo’s neck and Shizuo tips in, capitulating to the force of the other’s hold with no restraint left to hold him upright. He doesn’t want to be at any distance anyway, not when Izaya’s gaze is clinging to his lips and Izaya’s mouth is parted on breathless heat. Shizuo presses close, his mouth almost against Izaya’s by the time he catches himself, but Izaya doesn’t lift his head to a kiss, just gasps air like he’s trying to fill his lungs from the heat of Shizuo’s. “Shizuo, please, I want it, I _want_ you.”

Shizuo whimpers, as helpless to the heat of Izaya’s voice as to the surging force of arousal spiking up his spine and swelling impossible heat at his cock. “Izaya.”

“Please,” Izaya says, as Shizuo’s body takes the lead from him to rock forward, to thrust deeper into the heat of Izaya’s body, to bring them as close together as Shizuo’s want and Izaya’s surrender can get them. Izaya’s lashes dip as Shizuo drives into him, his lips part on a shuddering breath; his hand tightens at Shizuo’s neck, his arm shaking through the whole length of it and up into his shoulder like his entirely body is on the cusp of coming apart as Shizuo draws back. “Shizu--please, I want--” and Shizuo’s body comes forward, his grip at Izaya’s hip holding the other still for the pulse of his cock, and Izaya’s eyes open wide, words sliding away to drop his mouth open on a helpless gasp of heat. Shizuo feels his whole body tighten, feels his cock tense with anticipation as recognition for something he’s never seen spears through him; and Izaya’s lashes weight, his mouth softens, and he moans “ _Shizuo_ ” in a voice like a plea as his entire body convulses with the force of the pleasure that eclipses his awareness.

Shizuo sees Izaya’s expression go slack, sees the wave of heat break over the other’s features to wash away anything but incandescent, unthinking pleasure; and under him, against him, around him, he can feel the pulse of Izaya’s orgasm flexing to spend itself against the weight of Shizuo pinning him down. Izaya’s thighs quiver at Shizuo’s hips, his chest strains against Shizuo’s own, his cock jerks to spurt heat between the tension of their stomachs; and around Shizuo’s cock Izaya’s body spasms, bracing the force of his orgasm against the support of Shizuo inside him. Shizuo can see Izaya’s orgasm, can hear it, breathe it, feel it; and his own restraint gives way, snapping free to set loose a tide of pleasure to break up and over him. His thighs jerk, his fingers clench, his breath gusts, and relief washes over him, blurring his vision and stealing his focus and narrowing his existence to a single pulse of heat, a point of reality written in the throb of his cock spending himself as deep within Izaya as he can press. There’s a groan, Shizuo doesn’t know if he’s feeling it or hearing it and doesn’t care; all that matters is this moment, this present, of he and Izaya giving way to the convulsive heat of a single, overwhelming release.

In all the years he’s spent dreaming of it, Shizuo never imagined he could feel so complete.


	27. Embody

Shizuo is still with him when Izaya drifts back over the distance to himself. He doesn’t know how long it’s been; it’s impossible to track the passage of time when he has lost his grip on the structure of his own existence, when he has given over the boundaries of his mind for the endless rush of sensation enough to sweep him out of himself and into Shizuo, to blur all the barriers between them, to convert one’s desire into the other’s pleasure. Izaya gave himself over to Shizuo’s keeping, his body and heart and soul poured out over the curve of the other’s palms and melting in the heat of his body, and he’s faintly surprised even to find his existence still waiting for him when he returns to fit himself to the tremor of spent tension in his limbs and shuddering through his chest with every breath he takes. Shizuo is curved in over him, his hips pressing flush to Izaya’s and his deep, full inhales crushing Izaya down against the mattress beneath him, and for a long, unmeasured span Izaya lies still, feeling his heart beating in his chest and his fingers trembling in Shizuo’s hair and marvelling that there might be something for him to exist for beyond the transcendent moment of claiming.

Neither of them speak. Shizuo is breathing deep, deliberate inhales, sounding as if he’s turning the whole of his focus to the task of managing one breath after another, and Izaya is unwilling to do anything at all to disturb Shizuo against him. His chest is strained by the other’s weight, his shoulders pinned to sink deep into the soft of the sheets beneath him, but his fingers are wound into Shizuo’s hair, and all the ache in his thighs and quivering at his belly isn’t enough to so much as plead for separation. Izaya can feel Shizuo within him still, the solid heat of his cock still a strain even softened by the pleasure he offered in answer to the persuasion of Izaya’s body around him; the friction of it feels like a weight down in the depths of his stomach, as if he can feel the heat of Shizuo’s orgasm tying him to existence, a knot within him linking them together more effectively than all the scars that texture their skin to a match with each other. Izaya’s lungs ache, his legs tremble; but when he moves it’s only to tighten his calves around the backs of Shizuo’s thighs and to slide his fingers deeper into Shizuo’s hair to fix them together as long as he can manage to hold them there.

Shizuo shifts first. Izaya feels the flex over his shoulders, the impulse of action across his arms and pulling in the line of his back, but when he moves it’s not to drawl back but only to turn his head, to wind his breathing in against the side of Izaya’s neck instead of the rumple of the sheets below them. Izaya can feel the tendrils of heat curling over him like smoke, as if Shizuo’s inhale carries the weight of fingers drawing across his skin to feel along the texture of his throat, and he turns his head away, a languid motion to leave the whole line of his neck an offer to the other. Shizuo leans in closer, ducking forward to press his mouth flush to Izaya’s neck, and Izaya shuts his eyes and gives up a silent exhale of his own as surrender to the weight of Shizuo’s mouth against his skin.

Shizuo lingers there for a long moment. There’s a satisfaction to the press of his mouth, to the feel of damp heat linking his lips to Izaya’s skin; even when he moves it’s only enough to barely break his mouth away so he can move up by an inch, can claim the space under Izaya’s jaw instead of near the curve to his shoulder. Izaya’s lips part, his mouth going soft, and Shizuo kisses him again, working up under his chin to touch his lips to the soft skin just at the top of  the other’s throat. He comes up from there, arcing against the line of Izaya’s jaw to trace pale skin up towards his hairline, and when Izaya turns his head farther to the side Shizuo kisses behind his ear, the contact so gentle Izaya’s skin shivers with the premonition of pleasure more than the immediacy of it. Shizuo draws up from there, touching his lips just in front of Izaya’s ear and at the edge of his brow, breathing over the other’s cheek before feathering the delicate touch of his lips to the corner of Izaya’s lashes, until he finally draws back to touch his forehead to the side of Izaya’s head and breathe deep intention right against the shape of the other’s ear.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says. Izaya can feel the grate of his name in Shizuo’s throat down the texture of his spine, like the weight of a thumb urging hard against each vertebrae to print its shape before moving down to the next. Shizuo’s hand at Izaya’s hip eases and draws up, his palm pressing to the curve of the other’s ribcage like he’s trying to hold Izaya’s breathing in the grip of his fingers. When his hips angle forward Izaya can feel the movement urge the gasp of his breath close to Shizuo’s palm. “I think I’m getting hard again.”

Izaya knows. It’s hard to miss, when he can feel the strain of arousal reasserting itself in Shizuo’s body against his; the more so, when his body is aching around the renewed resistance of Shizuo’s cock swelling towards fullness again. It can’t have been nearly long enough, no matter how much time they lost to that dazed heat of their bodies pressing together, but Izaya doesn’t bother commenting on this any more than he tries to argue with the strain of too-much sensation settling at the cusp of pain down in the depths of his stomach. He just slides one arm around Shizuo’s back, digging his nails into traction at the other’s skin before he lifts both legs up to brace himself around Shizuo’s hips and urge his body up to a better angle at one and the same time.

“Good,” he says, and slides his fingers up to cradle the back of Shizuo’s head and hold the other against him. “Give me everything, Shizuo.”

Shizuo makes a low sound, unintelligible but understood all the same, interpreted somewhere around that knot of insatiable want in Izaya’s belly, somewhere across the scars that pattern his body into a perfect match for Shizuo’s own. His hand at Izaya’s ribcage slides, his fingers slipping to align themselves in the gaps in the other’s breath, and when he braces his knees at the bed and moves Izaya can feel the whole drag of Shizuo within him, the sensation heightened to perfect clarity by the ache of friction at his body and the arousal filling Shizuo’s cock as he starts to rock himself into Izaya once more. There’s heat, sticky-slick as Shizuo’s spent pleasure eases the drag and slide of this second coupling; the thought of it tenses Izaya’s thighs against Shizuo’s hips and curls his toes as his spine arches to lift him closer to Shizuo’s keeping. Shizuo groans a sound like raw heat and turns his head in to muffle himself against Izaya’s neck, and Izaya holds the tighter to Shizuo’s back and lets the steady stroke of the other’s movement fill his awareness until he overruns his limits.

Izaya’s breath is deepening, pulling long and low in his chest as his heart picks up speed to answer the thud of Shizuo’s working against him; his cock is hardening once more, struggling into arousal even as his balls ache with the satisfaction he has already spent, and still Shizuo swells, thickening within him until Izaya can feel the ache all the way up his spine, can feel the strain as his body struggles to bear the force. He would think Shizuo harder even than he was for their first joining except for the impossibility of overtaking the incandescent need of years of desire breaking over and into him to draw Izaya’s pleasure out of his shaking body; but Izaya feels it more clearly, this time, with the edge of painful strain unsoftened by the desperation of his first orgasm. It must be too much, they will have to stop, he will come apart into a wail of pain more than pleasure; but he bears it, for a breath, for a stroke, for a heartbeat, and he goes on bearing it, the leading edge of hurt blurring away as his arousal rises in time with Shizuo’s, as his cock swells and flushes as hard and wanting as Shizuo inside him. There’s an ache in him, a pressure struggling to bear the friction of Shizuo’s body working into his own; and Izaya can feel himself opening to it, can feel discomfort unfolding into want, friction dragging out to heat. Shizuo presses into him, urges him open and giving with every stroke he takes, and Izaya’s breath comes faster, his skin flushing hot as pressure works inside him, as Shizuo’s own rising pleasure opens up the renewed possibility of Izaya’s own.

“Izaya,” Shizuo groans, the heat on his voice enough to make the other’s name a plea all in itself. His hips stutter, his rhythm slipping out-of-pattern for a moment as if he can’t hold himself steady, as if he can’t restrain the need to be closer, faster, immediately. “You feel--” His body strains, his shoulders flexing over Izaya as he presses in as close as he can get, so near his hips urge Izaya’s thighs wider to accommodate the weight of them. “ _God_.”

“You too,” Izaya says. His voice is higher than he expected, straining and breathless over the words; he tightens his fingers into Shizuo’s hair and gasps in a futile attempt to ground himself against the dizzy rush of heat flowing into and through him. “You’re even better than I imagined, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo turns his head to breathe at Izaya’s neck, deep like he’s looking to draw Izaya directly into the span of his body. “Did you?” he asks. “Imagine?”

Izaya slides his hand along Shizuo’s back, urging his touch down to set against the angle of the other’s hips moving forward and into him. He can feel the friction of the other’s movement under his hand, can track the surge of sensation within him a moment before Shizuo’s cock slides forward to fill him once more. His fingers tighten, his nails catch against Shizuo’s skin, and when Shizuo groans Izaya can feel the heat like it’s his own body dragged raw under his touch.

“Always,” he says. “Ever since I knew.” Shizuo’s body crests forward; Izaya’s spine arches to press him closer to Shizuo’s chest. “Even before.”

Shizuo groans into Izaya’s neck. When his thighs flex Izaya can feel his own spasm with answering strain, as if the heat of his own cock is matching the drag of Shizuo’s swelling solid and heavy inside him. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

Izaya shakes his head. “I couldn’t,” he says, and the words are true as fast as he gives them voice, they fit themselves to sincerity before he knows what he will say. “I didn’t want to just be your soulmate, I wanted--” as his breathing catches, as his heart flutters on the surge of Shizuo stroking into him. “--I wanted to be me.”

“You are,” Shizuo says, growling the words to Izaya’s neck, and then his hand presses to Izaya’s face and he lifts his head, giving up his breathing against the other’s shoulder so he can look down at him instead. His face is flushed, his cheeks glowing pink with heat and his mouth flushed red with friction; his eyes are darker than Izaya has ever seen them, endless shadows all fixed on Izaya’s own face, tracking across the other’s features like Shizuo means to memorize them. Shizuo’s gaze slides over Izaya’s face, his eyes and nose and mouth, lingering so long at the shape of the other’s lips that Izaya half-expects a kiss to punctuate the tide of heat swelling to overtake him with the pressure building itself to inevitability within his body; but when Shizuo takes a breath it’s to speak instead of to kiss, to give words as his gaze comes up to hold to the haze of Izaya’s own. “Yourself. My soulmate.” He shakes his head; his hand slides down to cradle the back of Izaya’s head. “I love you for both.”

“Shizuo,” Izaya says. He means to offer some greater speech, some plea for forgiveness or the edge of a taunt or the heat of the adoration so much he still doesn’t know how to hold it without shattering; but Shizuo’s thrust hits before coherency does, and Izaya feels his intention melt away from him under the force of sensation that surges up and over him. His eyes open wide, his fingers tense and drag at Shizuo’s spine, he gasps for air. “ _Shizuo_.”

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, his voice tensing on expectation, and his thighs flex, his pace dropping into a faster rhythm than the steady-slow pace he’s been setting. It’s probably unintentional, instinct more than deliberation, but the cause doesn’t matter, as Izaya feels his body seize convulsively around the stroking weight pumping up and into him, feels that tide of heat swell and rise as if he’s watching it on a distant horizon. His lungs strain, dragging at a breath of air as desperately as if it’s going to be his last, and over him Shizuo’s expression eases, the crease at his forehead giving way as his set lips soften and part on the unthinking weight of distraction.

“Oh god,” Shizuo breathes. His fingers tighten at Izaya’s neck, his hips work through a long stroke of focused heat. “Izaya” and Izaya’s focus gives way, his attention to everything around him disintegrating as he gives up all the breath in him in a moan of heat to accompany the spasm of pleasure that quakes through the whole of his body. His eyes are open but he’s not watching anything, not really seeing anything; but he’s still gazing at Shizuo, still staring straight up into the other’s eyes, and when Shizuo’s expression falls into the slack surrender of orgasm Izaya shudders even before he feels Shizuo’s release pulsing into him. His own body is spent, unable to muster anything more than the jerk of his cock between them as he runs dry, but still Izaya comes right alongside Shizuo, their mutual orgasm made the stronger in the sharing.

Izaya is trembling when he returns to focus enough to notice his body once more. Shizuo is slack against him, even his remarkable strength utterly spent by the force of two orgasms in quick succession; Izaya’s tremors run up against the solid weight of Shizuo’s body and ground out there, quivering through him until the electric aftershocks of pleasure have finally spent themselves enough to sag him weak and heavy-limbed against the sheets beneath him. His hand is still in Shizuo’s hair, Shizuo’s palm is still weighting to the back of his neck; when Izaya sighs an exhale Shizuo stirs against him enough to lift his head from where he’s fallen forward against the other’s neck as if to make a pillow of Izaya’s shoulder. His lashes are heavy over his eyes, shadowing over the dark of his gaze as he blinks himself to clarity on Izaya beneath him. Izaya looks up at him for a moment, wondering at the impossibility of Shizuo over him, in him, with him as they are; and then he loosens his hand in Shizuo’s hair enough to draw his touch down and slide his fingertip against the dark of the other’s brow, over the narrow scar matching the one that he has spent so much of his life carefully coloring in. Shizuo’s gaze slips up away from Izaya’s eyes, matching the drag of the other’s thumb to the scar Izaya can feel like a brand against his own skin, and Izaya feels the force of it like a touch against his face, as if his thumb is pressing gentle contact to his own body rather than to Shizuo’s. He opens his mouth, intending to say something, anything; and Shizuo leans in, and Izaya’s lashes dip to darken his vision as Shizuo’s lips match slow, savouring heat to his own. His hand slides back, his body arches up, and when Shizuo pulls him in closer there’s nothing more between them than the shared patterns across their skin.


	28. Tied

After so long being at arm’s length, Izaya thinks there may be nothing more pleasant than the gentle weight of Shizuo’s fingers against his bare skin.

Shizuo has demonstrated a strong preference for physical contact. Izaya had thought he had already tasted the majority of what it would be like to be with Shizuo in the heat of the other’s mouth against his and the weight of his hands urging shuddering satisfaction from Izaya’s ever-ready body; his greatest frustration framed itself around the last intimacy that Shizuo refused to offer him, that physical connection to share out pleasure between them as easily as they offer up the heat of their bodies for each other. And that is a satisfaction, to be sure, one that has lost none at all of its appeal in the months that have followed since that first overindulgent joining; but Izaya has found an entire world of satisfaction for himself in a thousand things he never thought to so much as hope for, before. There is the warmth of another person tangled in the sheets that are no more cold than they are tidy, now; the familiarity of the bar where Izaya has taken to spending most of his time, if only for the improved view in comparison to the cafés he used to frequent with such regularity; the echo of sound off the walls of his apartment to fill all the vast space with resonance even when Shizuo isn’t there. And this, a greater charm than Izaya had ever hoped to claim for himself: the pleasure of a different bed, of sprawling across sheets rumpled by their recent use and pressing his face into the give of a pillow that smells almost as warm as the man so close behind Izaya that he can feel his presence without ever turning.

Shizuo likes to touch. This is true all the time, with the last barrier to their relationship shown as the illusion it always has been; he claims Izaya’s hand on the sidewalks, and touches his fingertips to the soft of Izaya’s collar, and presses his mouth to Izaya’s skin where the loose necklines of his shirts drag wide to bare the line of his collarbone. But it’s especially true after sex, as if Shizuo is trying to ease the necessary separation that must come with the culmination of their desire by catching a leg over Izaya’s knees and an arm around his waist to hold him back. Izaya didn’t even have time for the glow of sweat across his skin to dry, this time, before Shizuo was urging them so near that the radiance of the other’s pleasure reflected itself to warmth at Izaya’s body. Izaya doesn’t protest; he just lets himself go slack, urged into unusual relaxation by the languor that always follows Shizuo’s taking of him to sprawl heavy-limbed across the tangle of the sheets and gaze unseeing up at the ceiling as Shizuo’s hand slides down over the pattern of his breathing to catch and cradle against the shift of Izaya’s ribs under his skin.

It takes Izaya a while to realize what the other is doing. Shizuo’s touch is gentle, lingering so long that it’s hard to place his focus, hard to be sure he has any focus at all beyond the general appreciation of bare skin that he seems to relish the more for how long Izaya spent denying it to him. The other’s fingertips are careful, dragging over Izaya’s chest and sweeping broad strokes as they move from one point to the next; it’s only Shizuo’s thumb tightening at the angle of Izaya’s hip as his fingers spread wide and down that lets Izaya realize what has drawn the other’s attention as surely as the magnet it seems to be, sometimes.

“I don’t know what you expect to find there,” Izaya says without turning his head or shifting his attention away from the angle of the wall leading up to the ceiling overhead. “You’re not going to get rid of the thing by rubbing it away or you would have managed it already.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.” Shizuo’s voice is rough with the aftereffects of his spent pleasure but there’s not much of an edge to the words beyond that; another satisfaction Izaya had underestimated is the purr of Shizuo’s voice still warm from orgasm, when he sounds as deeply content as if he will never stir himself towards unhappiness ever again. He will, of course -- there are always irritations in the course of even the most idyllic life, and Izaya likes to keep his hand in at whetting Shizuo’s frustration when it’s been too long without an argument -- but even Izaya has never been able to strike sparks off Shizuo when he is as languid with obvious comfort as he is right now.

That doesn’t mean he’s not going to try, of course. “What _are_ you trying to do?” Izaya asks, and twists against the bed to curve his spine into elegance as he leans back to turn his head and look up at Shizuo tipped in behind him. The motion angles his shoulders against the support of the other’s chest and tips him to fall heavy across the clean line laid into Shizuo’s skin by Izaya himself, but Shizuo’s hand doesn’t lift from Izaya’s hip and the far rougher scar raised to a ridge of dark texture where it’s healed over the evidence of a long-ago wound.

Shizuo lifts a shoulder without moving his hand or shifting his gaze from where he’s fitting his fingers against the scar at Izaya’s hip. “I was just remembering,” he says in that same unflappable tone. His fingers flex for a moment to tighten in and hold Izaya down for a breath while Shizuo gusts a sigh. “I was afraid you were dead when I first noticed this.”

“You were afraid for your soulmate,” Izaya clarifies. “I bet you didn’t think about Orihara Izaya for a moment.”

Even that doesn’t win him the frown it normally would. Shizuo’s mouth quirks up at the corner, his lashes lift to cast the shadow of his gaze to Izaya’s face. “For you,” he repeats. “Just because I didn’t know it was you doesn’t mean I didn’t worry.” He shifts against the bed; not to pull away but to settle himself to greater comfort against the support of the mattress and the sheets under them. The arm he has bracing himself upright slides out to fit under Izaya’s neck and skim over the line of his shoulder. “And you’d lose that bet, too.”

“Heartbreaker,” Izaya accuses. “Thinking of another man while your soulmate was out in the world getting themselves stabbed almost to death? You really are a monster.”

Shizuo’s grip tightens, his arm flexes. It’s a gentle hold, for Shizuo, but in practice it’s still enough to draw Izaya slipping back over the bed to press flush to the support of the other’s chest. “Don’t joke about that,” he says, his head ducked in so his lips are almost brushing Izaya’s ear. “I really was scared for you.”

Izaya lifts a hand from where he has his arm draped heavy across his stomach so he can touch at Shizuo’s hair and feather his fingers into the bleached-yellow strands. “So was I,” he says, more softly than what went before.

Shizuo huffs against his hair. “Why were you afraid?”

Izaya shuts his eyes, heaving a breath heavy enough to sag him loose-limbed to the sheets beneath him. “You could have come to find me,” he says. “There aren’t that many stabbings, even in the city. It wouldn’t have taken that long to call the nearby hospitals to check.”

The idle motion of Shizuo’s fingers goes still. There’s a beat of silence, then: “I never thought of that.”

Izaya huffs a laugh. “That’s obvious,” he says. “Only think, all my efforts could have gone for naught right in that moment.”

Shizuo lifts his hand from Izaya’s side to press against the other’s hand at his hair instead. “I wish I had,” he says, low and raw with intensity.

Izaya opens his eyes and pushes against Shizuo’s hand to urge them both back from the other’s hair. “I don’t,” he says. Shizuo slides his fingers in to fit between the angle of Izaya’s and Izaya tightens his grip around the other’s hand, keeping his gaze on the pattern of their fingers latching together. “I would never have known, then, if you really wanted me or just the idea of me that you’d been building up in your head all your life.”

Shizuo growls over a low sound in the back of his throat and catches his thumb around Izaya’s wrist to pin their hands together. “I do,” he says. “You. All of you.” He ducks his head in to press close against the weight of Izaya’s hair. “Isn’t that all it means to be soulmates in the first place?”

Izaya shifts his grip at Shizuo’s hand. He can see the band of dark ink wound around his own finger under Shizuo’s hold, the same pattern matched precisely to the text curling against Shizuo’s finger like the delicate tracery of a ring laid to permanence by the weight of the ink. When he turns his hand to lift their interlaced fingers to the light he can make out the first words, the start of the statement that has fit itself into his life as closely as the pace of his heartbeat and the heat of Shizuo’s body against him. Shizuo tips his head to look up, following the gesture of Izaya’s hand tugging at his own; when his grip tightens Izaya can feel the pressure of the other’s hold like an arm wrapping around him even before Shizuo rocks in to press closer against him and fit his lips to the curve of Izaya’s cheekbone with a touch as breathlessly delicate as if he’s afraid of leaving a bruise.

“I do love you, Izaya,” he murmurs, speaking softly for Izaya’s hearing alone. “I think I always have.”

Izaya looks at the texture of the words around his finger, the inked-in proof of the same connection that has bound them together with every pale scar, that has been urging them towards each other since before Izaya knew to feel anything other than resentment for his other half. It’s hard to recall the feel of it, with his body aching on bone-deep satisfaction and the warmth of Shizuo pressing close against him; and Izaya lets his breath go, and lets the effort slide free as he turns his head to give voice to the words winding across their skin.

“ I love you too,” he says. Shizuo hums in the back of his throat, a low note of satisfaction Izaya can feel as clearly as he can hear it, and when Shizuo leans in to catch Izaya’s mouth against his Izaya lifts his chin, and shuts his eyes, and lets himself be claimed at last.


End file.
